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way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

proceed

How many times the word 'proceed' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

attended

How many times the word 'attended' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

cheeks

How many times the word 'cheeks' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

aunt

How many times the word 'aunt' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

heartiest

How many times the word 'heartiest' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

purple

How many times the word 'purple' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

presages

How many times the word 'presages' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

work

How many times the word 'work' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

supper

How many times the word 'supper' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

genteeler

How many times the word 'genteeler' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

presently

How many times the word 'presently' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

ill

How many times the word 'ill' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

attention

How many times the word 'attention' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

can

How many times the word 'can' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

heavy

How many times the word 'heavy' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

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How many times the word 'back' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

sun

How many times the word 'sun' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

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way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

standing

How many times the word 'standing' appears in the text?

way up, and try and profit a little more by the opportunities your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say _what_'ll happen t'ye if ye don't." And Kipps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about stamping with vigour and despatch. "Lick the _envelope_," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the _envelope_," as though he grudged the youngster the postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philosophy of life--to bustle and save, always to bustle and save. His political creed linked Reform, which meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated service, and Economy which meant a sweated expenditure, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-paring to the world. 2 The indentures that bound Kipps to Mr. Shalford were antique and complex: they insisted on the latter gentleman's parental privileges; they forbade Kipps to dice and game; they made him over body and soul to Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years of his life. In return there were vague stipulations about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negligence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical business man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish, and set himself assiduously to get as much out of Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the seven years of their intercourse. What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and margarine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr. Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen resources at his disposal free--if the fire chanced to be going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a bed which, except in very severe weather, could be made with the help of his overcoat and private underlinen, not to mention newspapers, quite sufficiently warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels; to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's systematised shop; to hold his hands extended upon the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can I have the pleasure...?" "No trouble, I 'ssure you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure materials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a servile obedience to a large number of people. But he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chintzes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress materials, linings, stiffenings--they were to him from first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells. Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy. In return for these benefits he worked so that he commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His round began at half-past six in the morning, when he would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be coffee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop for the labours of the day. Commonly these began with a mighty running to and fro with planks and boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser, who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persistently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the window was done. Sometimes the costume window had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the whole length of the shop from the costume room with one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing, there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps; and certain other sorts of goods that came from the wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded, which folding makes young apprentices wish they were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble, you know, that is not avoided because of the cheapness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness of forethought in the world. And then consignments of new goods had to be marked off and packed into proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in some other direction--not ascertained. And always Carshot nagged. He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral oeconomy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce me to render by an an mic paraphrase. "My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy," so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was within a foot or so of the customer's face the disciplined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a featureless, intercalary murmur into--well, "my heart and lungs!" There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supplying unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and so forth in the dressmaking department. He was given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned thereto, and discharged into the sunshine and interest of the street. Then, until he thought it wise to return and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man, clear of all reproach. He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as for example that the most convenient way from the establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the establishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddis & Tyrrel, two of his principal places of call, is not as is generally supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sandgate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down _twice_, but not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and there are interesting swans. He would return to find the shop settling down to the business of serving customers. And now he had to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to the seniors who served, to carry parcels and bills about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each engagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached, and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing, and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be recalled sharply to our higher civilisation by some bustling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. _Look_ alive! Ketch 'old. (My heart and lungs!)" At half-past seven o'clock--except on late nights--a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scattering of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop. Sometimes people would stay long after the shop was closed--"They don't mind a bit at Shalford's," these ladies used to say--it is always ladies do this sort of thing--and while they loitered it was forbidden to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to conclude the day until the doors closed behind them. Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and disfigurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that consumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his mind.... The front door was locked at half-past ten, and the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven. 3 On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once, and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely listened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he evaded this ceremony for some years. In the intervals between services he walked about Folkestone with an air of looking for something. Folkestone was not so interesting on Sundays as on week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance along the front of the Leas in the afternoon. Sometimes the apprentice next above him would condescend to go with him; but when the apprentice next but one above him condescended to go with the apprentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable therefore to appear in such company, went alone. Sometimes he would strike out into the country--still as if looking for something he missed--but the rope of meal-times haled him home again; and sometimes he would invest the major portion of the weekly allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would sometimes walk up and down the Leas between twenty and thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage to speak to some other person in the multitude similarly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sunday footsore. He never read a book; there were none for him to read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guidance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition of the _Tempest_ (English Literature) he had no taste that way; he never read any newspapers, except occasionally _Tit-Bits_ or a ha'penny "comic." His chief intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at dinner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins and have the chance and courage for speech. At times there came breaks in this routine--sale times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight, but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings in the way of 'premiums.' And every year--not now and then, but every year--Mr. Shalford, with parenthetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing comparisons with the austerer days when _he_ was apprenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holiday--ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. Insatiable heart of man! but how those days were grudged and counted as they snatched themselves away from him one after another! Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with oppressive brilliancy. "System!" he would say, "system. Come! 'ussel!" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about, confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and lungs!" The smart junior and the second apprentice vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that made him almost violently subservient to Shalford. They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down before he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary inkpots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vociferate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of the department and vociferate, and the second apprentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look Alive, Kipps! Look Alive! Ink, Man! Ink!" A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an intense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures, filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm and stress. He felt that the whole business was unjust and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided him through a fumbling performance of his duties. His disgust was infinite! It was not decreased by the inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal incident in the business of making an English draper; and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair, a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the question and sealed his misery. "When you get too old to work they chuck you away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers everywhere--tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus conductors--Quod. Anywhere but in a crib." "Don't they get shops of their own?" "Lord! '_Ow_ are they to get shops of their own? They 'aven't any capital! How's a draper's shopman to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over. I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got to crawl along it till we die." The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"--the little beggar being Mr. Shalford--"and see how his blessed System met that." The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's department. He would look at Minton and look at Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shalford hit.... But for reasons known to himself Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton, as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting experiment upon the System was never attempted. 4 There were times when Kipps would lie awake, all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dimly he perceived the thing that had happened to him--how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape. This was to be his life until his days should end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no freedom. Neither--though the force of that came home to him later--might he dream of effectual love and marriage. And there was a terrible something called the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient. Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself; and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine. He would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery with those windy, sunlit days at Littlestone, those windows of happiness shining ever brighter as they receded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these windows now. She, too, had happened on evil things. When Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out and whistled in the yard. There was a still silence, and then old Kipps appeared behind him. "It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any truck with. _She's_ gone as help to Ashford, my boy. _Help!_ Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while they was about it. It 'ud be like 'em." And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here brasted cicycle shops." "_Has_ 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly and went indoors. Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.... When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom, he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They were caught--they were all caught. All life took on the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning. The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach had passed away from him, the sun of those warm evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore.... The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of his holiday after that was to think he was not in the shop. Even that was transient. Two more days--one more day--half a day. When he went back there were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went so far as to write home some vague intimation of his feelings about business and his prospects, quoting Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they should not say he failed at that. He derived much help from a "manly" sermon delivered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all his might; and the revision of his Catechism preparatory to his confirmation reminded him that it behooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call him...." After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute, and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life was over. He subdued himself to his position even as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no way out of it. The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles and ankles became indurated to the perpetual standing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford, after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds, was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers, compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long, long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached the end of his appointed time and left--to enlist in a cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley. In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer; he was serving customers (of the less important sort) and taking goods out on approval; and presently he was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible, and there were three apprentices whom he might legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonestly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years. 5 There came still other distractions, the natural distractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the inevitable. His costume, for example, began to interest him more; he began to realise himself as a visible object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors and the eyes of the girl apprentices. In this he was helped by counsel and example. Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being what was called a Masher, and preached his cult. During slack times grave discussions about collars, ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department. In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails. Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones. They were nearly three inches high, higher than those Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and left a red mark under his ears.... So equipped, he found himself fit company even for this fashionable apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in his seniority. Most potent help of all in the business of forgetting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable. It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely better this story would be from a sentimental point of view if he had remained true to that early love. Only then it would have been a different story altogether. And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none of these later loves was there any of that particular quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth and the inner things of life so inseparably together. Though they were not without emotions of various sorts. It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room who first showed by her manner that he was a visible object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him to escort her to church with a great air of having induced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indifference to religion, and extorted a promise that he would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she set herself with great charm and subtlety to the capture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more worldly line. She went for a walk with him to the pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies exchanged "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this way was the _toga virilis_ bestowed on Kipps, and he became recognised as a suitable object for that Platonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the very highest-class establishments. In this way, too, did that pervading ambition of the British young man to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like one, take root in his heart. He took to these new interests with quite natural and personal zest. He became initiated into the mysteries of "flirting," and--at a slightly later stage, and with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a communicative disposition in these matters--of the milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was engaged. Before two years were out he had been engaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Desperate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member of the Established Church. The engagements in drapery establishments do not necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and altogether less binding than the engagements of the vulgar rich. These young ladies do not like not to be engaged--it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are, from the young lady's point of view, many conveniences in being engaged. You get an escort for church and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon" with him, when he is neither one's _fianc _ nor an adopted brother; it is considered either a little _fast_, or else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human charity, that the shop young lady in England has just the same horror of doing anything that savours of the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has of anything savouring of the shop girl, or the really quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic battlefield to earn herself a living.... But the very deepest of these affairs was still among the shallow places of love; at best it was paddling where it is decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flatteries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence, or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was indeed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea. The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came and went like people in an omnibus: there was the vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all that, this development of the sex interest was continuously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as much as anything through all these servile years. 6 For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one of those little affairs. It is a bright Sunday afternoon; the scene is a secluded little seat half-way down the front of the Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremendous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trousers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances sideways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk. She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might disappear under the analysis of a woman of the world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller," and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her Christian name. The conversation is light and gay in the modern style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being her special charm. "Ye see, you don' mean what _I_ mean," he is saying. "Well, what do _you_ mean?" "Not what you mean!" "Well, tell me." "_Ah!_ That's another story." Pause. They look meaningly at one another. "You _are_ a one for being roundabout," says the lady. "Well, you're not so plain, you know." "Not plain?" "No." "You don't mean to say I'm roundabout?" "No. I mean to say ... though----" Pause. "Well?" "You're not a bit plain--you're" (his voice jumps up to a squeak) "pretty. See?" "Oh, get _out_!"

marking

How many times the word 'marking' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

activity

How many times the word 'activity' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

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weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

there,--doing

How many times the word 'there,--doing' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

nobody

How many times the word 'nobody' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

eye

How many times the word 'eye' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

huddled

How many times the word 'huddled' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

duct

How many times the word 'duct' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

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weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

substantial

How many times the word 'substantial' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

intercut

How many times the word 'intercut' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

around

How many times the word 'around' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

turbines

How many times the word 'turbines' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

realizes

How many times the word 'realizes' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

scar

How many times the word 'scar' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

cars

How many times the word 'cars' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

induction

How many times the word 'induction' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

stick

How many times the word 'stick' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

word

How many times the word 'word' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

chance

How many times the word 'chance' appears in the text?

weird old stunt plane... doing flips... walking on the wings... I was watching from the ground -- when you fell. You had a parachute, but you wouldn't open it. ARCHER Did you catch me? EVE No. ARCHER How come? EVE I don't know... (nuzzles him) Maybe because you've never needed my help. ARCHER Come on, you made that up, didn't you? EVE ... Maybe I did... (teasing) ... maybe I didn't... They kiss affectionately. Passion building, Eve runs her hands over his body -- until her fingers touch a round scar on his chest. Archer freezes -- mid-caress. EVE It's all right, Jon. ARCHER After all these years, I still can't get it out of my head -- an inch to the left, Matty would still be alive. EVE And you wouldn't be. No response. The pain hidden in his silence chills Eve. EVE Things will get better now that you're home. Everything will be better -- now that... that man is finally out of our lives. ARCHER Eve... He starts to say the words. He wants, needs to share the truth with her. But he can't. Instead -- ARCHER ... If I had to do something to find some closure... I should do it, shouldn't I?... No matter how crazy? EVE Oh, God -- you're going on assignment again... ARCHER One last time. And while I'm gone, I want you and Jamie to go to your mother's. It's important... EVE You said you'd be here! You promised! What could be more important than that? ARCHER I can't tell you... except only I can do it. EVE You want me to tell you it's okay to leave? Okay, go on! Go! Fury erupting, Eve pushes Archer out of the bed. INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - NIGHT Archer enters a child's room -- neat and tidy, like a museum exhibit. A starfield of glow-letters twinkles faintly. He lies down on the bed and toys with his wedding band -- staring up at the words the stars form... "MATTHEW." DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONVENTION CENTER - MACHINE ROOM - BLINKING LIGHTS - NIGHT The blinking LED of the bomb timer continues to count down. INT./EXT. '56 BUICK/MOUNTAIN ROAD - MOVING - DAY Tito drives into the Hoag compound. Archer's beside him, juggling Castor's dossier: documents, photos, etc. TITO Jon, this is goddam insane. You can't do it. Archer says nothing... it's too late for debate. Tito parks. The men get out and head for the lab. TITO You haven't got a chance in hell of fooling Pollux. Castor drinks, smokes and walks around with a 24- hour hard-on. He's nothing like you -- ARCHER Don't worry... If Hoag can do half what he claims, I'll get Pollux to talk. Archer reaches for the door -- Tito stops him. TITO It's not that simple, Jon... Becoming another person -- especially him -- nobody can come all the way back from that... not even you. Archer considers his friend's words... He toys with, then removes, his wedding bang. ARCHER Keep this for me. As Tito takes the ring -- a caring, but concerned look passes between the two friends. INT. SURGICAL BAY - DAY Two huge video screens are dominated by the CG-images of Archer and Castor. As Hoag briefs the team, the CG- images glow to reflect the physical characteristic Hoag refers to. HOAG Let's walk through it, Jon. Your blood types are different, but we can't do anything about that. Otherwise, nature is cooperating nicely. The height difference is negligible -- within 1/2 an inch. Eye color -- almost a perfect match. Penis size, flaccid, essentially the same -- Substantial. From the observation booth above -- Miller (flanked by Tito and Brodie) raises his eyebrow. On the video screens, the images morph to signify the physical augmentations. HOAG Hairline will be adjusted with laser-shears... micro-plugs for the body hair... the teeth will be bonded to match Castor's... Hoag eyes Castor's inert, tight body -- then turns to Archer -- prodding his love handles like a livestock inspector. HOAG How about an abdominoplasty? ARCHER Abdomino -- what? HOAG A tummy tuck. On the house. ARCHER Do it. TRANSFORMATION MONTAGE (INTERCUT huge video screen enlargements of Archer and Castor's body parts as necessary): Globules of adipose tissue are siphoned off Archer's obliques. At the same time... Hoag recreates the "Great Sphinx" tattoo on Archer's thigh. We PUSH IN ON his leg, then PULL BACK to reveal... Archer and Tito. The CLOSE UP on his leg becomes a FULL SHOT as he walks across the rooftop -- like himself. Tito demonstrated the proper "Castor gait": dangerously casual, like a panther. Hoag reproduces Castor's fingerprints... then layers them over Archer's fingers. Archer practices Castor's icy, killer glare. Tito hands him a lit cigarette. Archer brings the cigarette to his lips -- then coughs harshly. But he keeps trying. Castor smiles... then smirks and laughs. PULL BACK to reveal Archer studying surveillance footage of Castor on a monitor-screen -- mimicking him. Archer fusses with his new hair, trying to cover the thin spots. Giving up, he zips up his sweatshirt -- getting the zipper caught in his new chest hair. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - GROUNDS - DAY Tito tosses a pistol. Archer catches it with his right hand. But to Archer's surprise, Tito frowns. TITO Nice catch. But you used the wrong hand. He takes the pistol away -- and slaps it in Archer's left hand. Then Tito shoves him -- challengingly. TITO Shoot me. (as Archer doesn't move) Shoot me! Tito pulls the gun against his own forehead. TITO You want to be Castor Troy? If you hesitate for a breath, you're finished! Now -- shoot me! Kill me! Archer holds the gun unsteadily. Tito is disgusted. TITO You can't do it... because Castor is tougher than you... BOOM! The GUN goes off -- the slug tears past Tito's head. Shocked, he touches his left ear, making sure it's still there. Then Tito looks at Archer -- and sees the determination. EXT. HOAG'S FACILITY - NIGHT Clear and calm. God's night. Someone's God anyway. INT. I.C.U. ROOM - NIGHT Hoag leads Archer to a full-length mirror. HOAG Let's see if I missed anything before I get my hands really dirty. Archer removes the robe. He's amazed to see: His own head on Castor's body: a flat stomach, hairy chest, tattoos, thinning hair, etc. Hoag touches Archer's scar. HOAG You realize this has to be removed. (as Archer slowly nods) Then here we go, Commander. Through the Looking Glass... INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Unconscious, Archer is wheeled into the surgical bay, Castor beside him. Hoag turns to the video technician. HOAG Make sure you get everything -- I'll need to study the tape before the reverse surgery. Hoag lowers an aerated Plexiglas mask over Archer's face. Interwoven with integrated laser circuitry -- this Derma- Induction-Device (D.I.D.) attaches via suction. Hoag sights through the optical memory, squeezes the trigger. A cobalt beam cuts around the face -- cleanly slicing it. Then Hoag lifts Archer's face -- off of his skull. Brodie and Miller watch from above. Tito stumbles into the nearby bathroom to throw up. Hoag inspects Archer's face, then turns to his nurse. HOAG Vault it. Hoag turns to perform the same procedure on Castor. Castor's consistent EEG reading suddenly spikes radically -- for a moment, it almost seems to stabilize. Hoag glances over -- too late -- the spikes have disappeared. But the CAMERA CLOSES IN ON Castor's ear -- and we sense that, somehow, his auditory nerves might be functioning. DISSOLVE TO: INT. RECOVERY ROOM - DAY A head swathed in gauze. The bandages start to fall away. Tito, Miller and Brodie wait as Hoag removes the gauze. The patient looks into a mirror. Jon Archer has become Castor Troy. he touches his new face. Archer stares... the cold reality chilling his blood. Archer buckles -- unprepared emotionally for what he's done to himself. For a moment, he seems to teeter on madness. TITO Jon -- are you all right? Archer can't respond... he's somewhere the others can't comprehend. Finally he emerges... shaken, but in control. TITO enters. Instinctively, he grabs for his holster. ARCHER Okay... I'm okay. (realizes) But my voice... I still sound like me. HOAG I implanted a micro-chip onto your larynx. Hoag SWITCHES ON an AUDIO TAPE. Archer repeats Castor's words as Hoag adjusts the chip with a wavelength box. CASTOR (V.O.) ARCHER Okay, I've got a Okay, I've got a confession to make, but confession to make, but you aren't gonna like you aren't gonna like it... (etc.) it... (etc.) After a few repetitions, Archer's voice matches perfectly. Archer yawns, squints and furrows his brow -- testing every muscle. He stares into the mirror -- into the eyes of his most hated enemy -- now his eyes. Archer slowly turns to... Castor. Motionless, swathed, dead to the world -- but something about Castor's smile -- that mocking smile... ARCHER Now what? TITO We're down to 72 hours. Let's call Lazarro. Castor Troy just came out of his coma. EXT. FBI HELIPORT - DAY Armed agents take their positions around a helipad. A jet-black helicopter drops from the sky like an angry wasp. EXT. HELIPAD - DAY As Lazarro watches -- Tito escorts out a heavily-manacled "Castor." Two armed agents leap from the chopper and take charge of "Castor." He follows them pliantly, until -- TITO Watch this hard-case -- he'll bite your nuts off if he gets the chance! Archer gets the message. He starts to resist the agents and must be muscled into the chopper. He's manacled down. Eye contact between Archer and Tito -- both aware of this very real point of departure. The CHOPPER DOOR SLAMS SHUT. It lifts off like a twister and SCREAMS away. EXT. HELIPORT - STAGING AREA - DAY The watching team breaks up, wanders back to work. LOOMIS What a week for Archer to go on a training op. Maybe we should try to contact him. WANDA Forget it. He's knee-deep in Georgia swamp by now. They pass Brodie and Miller, who watch the chopper disappear over the horizon. So far so good. INT. CHOPPER - FLYING - DAY The agent re-checks Archer's chains. ARCHER Don't forget -- I ordered a kosher meal... The agent smashes his elbow into Archer's gut. The second agent presses an INJECTOR against Archer's leg. PSSSST. Archer spasms against the drug -- then sags unconscious. INT. EREWHON PRISON - DELOUSING CUBICLE Archer wakes up as a torrent of delousing spray hits him. A guard holds a water cannon on the newest inmate. Archer lies gasping on the steel floor, protecting his face. The spray stops -- when head guard "RED" WALTON enters. WALTON You are now an Erewhon inmate -- a citizen of nowhere. Human rights zealots, the Geneva convention and the P.C. police have no authority here. You have no right... (slaps on latex gloves) When I say your ass belongs to me -- I mean it. Bend over. Archer's face reflects the degradation as he bends over and exposes all to the cavity-searching Guard. Satisfied, Walton lets Archer dress. Another guard places a pair of odd-looking steel boots before Archer. WALTON Step into them. Archer inspects the lock-down boots. Hinged steel collars hook over the shoe and encase the ankle. The soles are gridded steel with magnetic inserts. WALTON Don't sniff 'em, you perv. Just step into them. Archer obeys. A guard squats down and locks the steel collars over Archer's shoes. He tries to move -- but can't. ARCHER They're too tight. WALTON So's a noose. Now keep your mouth shut. Walton JOLTS Archer with his HIGH-VOLTAGE SHOCK-STICK. WALTON The prison's one big magnetic field. The boots'll tell us where you are -- every second of the day. (into comm-link) 201 to Population. Walton presses his thumb into a standard FBI scan-pad. It forms a print -- positively identifying the guard. The heavy blast-door automatically opens. WALTON I've got fifty bucks says you're dead by dinner. Don't disappoint me. Walton prods Archer toward the door. To Archer's surprise -- he can now move. INT. GENERAL POPULATION - DAY The inmates eat. Silence descends as Archer enters -- intensifying the constant HUMMING of the MAGNETIC FIELD. Huge Dubov does a slow burn on seeing "Castor." Scanning the room for Pollux -- Archer takes a seat next to a LITTLE, GOATEED MAN with a French accent. LITTLE MAN Hey, Castor -- remember me? ARCHER Fabrice Voisine... sure, I -- (catches himself) -- I believe Jon Archer busted you for poisoning five members of the the Canadian parliament? VOISINE (LITTLE MAN) Those scumbags should never have voted against the Quebecois. (a beat) We heard you got wasted. Archer sees the other inmates sizing him up. ARCHER Do I look wasted -- asshole? Voisine shakes his head "no" -- then his eyes widen as... WHAM. Dubov leaps onto Archer and starts pummeling him. They slide across the table -- spilling everyone's lunch. GUARD (into comm-unit) Central. I have a disturbance in population. Go to lock down -- WALTON (into comm-unit) Hold that lock down. Walton watches as Dubov throws Archer across the room. Archer staggers to his feet -- and sees the encircling inmates and guards looking at him -- unimpressed. Especially his "brother" Pollux -- who watches uncertainly. Dubov attacks again -- but Archer is ready. He grabs Dubov's fist -- just before it hits his face. ARCHER Never -- in -- the -- face. Holding Dubov's fist firmly, Archer kicks Dubov repeatedly in the groin. Metal boot meeting soft flesh. Dubov staggers back -- hurt. Archer moves in for the kill, savoring it. Walton looks skyward. WALTON Lock 'em down. INTERCUT WITH: UP ABOVE - CENTRAL SECURITY The prison's nerve center -- with video-feeds and monitors designed to keep problems and privacy to a minimum. The two deputies react to Walton's call. Identifying Archer and Dubov's signature-blips -- they throw the appropriate switches and... ZAP! The magnetic boots lock both inmates to the floor. Dubov flails hopelessly -- but Archer's just out of reach. Crack! Walton punches Archer in the diaphragm. ARCHER What? He started it! Walton smashes Archer harder -- he hits the floor. ARCHER When I get out of here -- WALTON You'll what? ARCHER I'm going to have you fired. His statement is so ludicrous, Walton laughs. Everyone does. From the inmates' reactions, Archer knows he's been accepted. WALTON (to Dubov) That's two strikes, Dubov. One more and you know where you're going. (to the others) Back to your 'suites' -- or no dinner. As Archer drops into the line of cons -- he spots Pollux waiting for him. Girding himself for this first encounter -- he's got a plan. POLLUX Hey, bro... ARCHER -- Pollux? POLLUX Of course it's Pollux, what the fuck's wrong with you? Archer stares -- feigning confusion until Walton prods him forward. Pollux watches his "brother" go -- very concerned. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - NIGHT Archer lies on his cot -- staring at the ceiling. Isolated, lonely, he realizes how easy it would be to go insane here. EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT An insanely starry night. Van Gogh's night. The night he cut off his ear, anyway. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Castor's body lies inert. His life-support MACHINES BLIPPING away. Until the EEG spikes. Once -- twice -- three times. Brain wave activity increases -- and stabilizes. Castor's fingers twitch. Then his fist clenches -- hard. Castor's head is swathed in gauze. But his eyes pop open. Reflexively, Castor wrenches from the bed -- tearing out the tubes and wires that tether him to life support. He goes down -- in agony -- groaning. He struggles to his feet -- staggering through the lab -- until he catches the reflection of his bandaged face in the window. He quickly unwraps the gauze. The discarded bandages fall at his feet... we don't see what CASTOR sees -- but we hear him MOAN... then CHOKE... then SCREAM -- the only moment Castor ever loses his cool. Finally composing himself -- Castor's hand grips the phone and he dials. CASTOR Lars... okay, Lunt, then. (rifling desk documents) Something really fucked-up happened... I'm in trouble... so listen very carefully... EXT. HOAG INSTITUTE - NIGHT (LATER) A RANGE ROVER SCREECHES up. At gunpoint, Lars and Lunt manhandle Hoag into the lab. INT. SURGICAL BAY - NIGHT Lars and Lunt hustle Hoag in. The lab is on. The screens run -- scrolling through the video log of Archer's surgery. Hoag sees his terrified assistants -- bound with duct tape. HOAG What's this about? What do you want? Lars shoves Hoag into a towering figure... we ZOOM IN ON Hoag's glasses. And THROUGH the REFLECTION we see... MAN WITHOUT FACE Hoag reacts in horror at the raw muscle, cartilage and bone. The man lifts a cigarette to his lips... then exhales. CASTOR What do you think I want? INT. PRISON - POPULATION - DAY A huge wall-screen plays gentle nature scenes. Below -- the inmates engage in their exercise hour. Voisine stares at the screen -- while Pollux carefully watches his "brother" play basketball. Archer tosses up an air-ball to the jeers of other inmates. POLLUX You realize, of course, that magnetic humming is designed to drive us insane. If we all don't get brain tumors first. VOISINE And that same cloying Bambi tape -- over and over... POLLUX It's like they're begging us to riot. Where the fuck are we, anyway? (the game ends) Gotta go... Pollux trots over to Archer -- passes him his cigarette. He studies Archer as he takes a drag -- and nearly gags. POLLUX ... I'm worried about you. ARCHER Why? POLLUX Your jumpshot has no arc. You used to swagger... now you swish. You're gumming that butt like a Catholic school girl. (notices) And why do you keep picking at your finger? Pollux has caught Archer reflexively tugging at his phantom wedding ring. Archer immediately stops. He takes a drag and holds it -- then exhales right in Pollux's face. ARCHER I was in a coma... Pollux sticks his finger under Archer's eye and pulls down like a vet examining a sick dog. Archer pushes him off. ARCHER My reflexes, my senses, my memory... everything's jumbled. I can't even tell you why Dubov jumped me yesterday. POLLUX You Pollinated his wife the day he was arrested. How could forget that? ARCHER I've forgotten plenty. Look around -- we've screwed over half the freaks in here. What's gonna happen to us if they think I've lost it? Pollux contemplates the other inmates -- circling, sizing up the brothers like hungry sharks. Instinctively, Pollux moves closer to Archer for protection. ARCHER I need you to play big brother for once -- till I can fill in a few blanks. Think you can handle that? Pollux nods grimly -- then Archer pulls up his sleeve, exposing the pyramid tattoo. ARCHER I know I got this on my tenth birthday. I just can't remember why. POLLUX Man -- that was the worst day of our lives! Archer feigns a "struggle" with his memory. He lights a new butt with the old -- chain-style... then "remembers." ARCHER Oh, God -- Mom O-D'd at County General. POLLUX Retching and convulsing while those bastards didn't even try to save her sorry ass. You gave her mouth to mouth -- man -- even then you had some constitution. (a beat) Remember what you swore to me at the funeral? ARCHER Uh -- to kill the doctors? POLLUX After that. You promised you'd always take care of me. ARCHER And I bet I kept that promise... POLLUX Only one you've never broken. Pollux curls into Archer -- in need of comfort. Archer puts an affectionate arm around Pollux -- springing the trap. ARCHER Screw the past. We've got the future to look forward to. (a beat) We still have tomorrow. POLLUX No shit... five million bucks... now those Red Militia crackpots get to keep it. ARCHER That's not the worst part. POLLUX What's worse than losing five million bucks? ARCHER Being stuck in this rat-hole when it blows. What you built was a work of art. It belongs in the Smithsonian. Pollux beams with pride -- Archer hangs on every word. POLLUX Yeah -- well... the L.A. Convention Center will have to do... ARCHER Thanks, Pollux. POLLUX 'Thanks'? I guess they really did fuck you up. Then Archer smiles -- like Jon Archer. Without knowing exactly why -- a wave of ill-ease overtakes Pollux. INT. ARCHER'S CELL - DAY Archer paces impatiently... as the door rolls open. Walton is looking at him with cool respect. WALTON You have a visitor. Archer smiles to himself -- pleased at Brodie's timeliness. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Archer's boots lock down -- as the guillotine door rises. But his confidence evaporates into unspeakable horror. Because he finds himself staring into the blue eyes of -- Jon Archer. This man has Archer's face -- his real face. IMPOSTOR What's the matter? Don't you like the new me? Archer studies the image of his former self -- trying to understand. Then he recognizes the smirk on the face, the mocking twinkle in the eyes and he says what he cannot say... ARCHER -- Castor...? CASTOR Not anymore. ARCHER It can't be. It's impossible. CASTOR I believe the phrase Dr. Hoag used was 'titanically remote'. Who knows? Maybe the trauma of having my face cut off pulled me out. Or maybe God really is on my side after all. (starts pacing) By the way, I know you don't get the papers in here. Continuing to circle, he displays the current LA Times: "INFERNO AT HOAG INSTITUTE -- Malcolm Hoag Dead" CASTOR Terrible tragedy. Hoag was such a genius -- but selfish with his artistry. I actually had to torture his assistants to convince him to perform the same surgery on me. ARCHER You killed them? CASTOR Of course I killed them, you dumb fuck. Hoag, his staff... FLASH ON Hoag's body -- on the floor of the burning lab. Two more burned bodies adjoin Hoag's. CASTOR Miller and Brodie -- FLASH ON Brodie and Miller -- dead in a mangled car wreck. CASTOR I even paid a visit to your buddy Tito. ARCHER He doesn't know anything about this! CASTOR Come on, Jon. I think I know you better than that. I only wish you could have been there to see the look on his face -- FLASH ON Tito... he smiles, then recoils in shock as Castor lifts a pistol and shoots him... then he picks up Archer's wedding band off the counter... INT. EREWHON PRISON (PRESENT) Archer stares -- thunderstruck -- at the wedding band now on Castor's finger. CASTOR -- then again, I guess you were there. (a beat) I torched every shred of evidence that proves who you are. So swallow this -- you are going to be in here for the rest of your life. ARCHER Castor, don't do this -- CASTOR No discussion, Jon -- no deals. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an important government job to abuse, and a beautiful wife to fuck. Excuse me -- I mean 'make love to.' Archer freaks out. He screams, flails -- unable to reach Castor. Castor opens the door and guards rush in -- clubbing Archer and shocking him senseless. WALTON Sorry, sir. CASTOR It's quite all right. You never know what to expect from a psychopathic criminal... INT. CELL BLOCK - DAY The guards dump Archer into his cell. WALTON Better be nice, Castor. You could get mighty lonely now that Pollux is gone. ARCHER Pollux is -- what? WALTON Archer cut him a deal for turning state's evidence. He's been released... ARCHER Walton, you have to listen to me -- right now! WALTON Or what? You'll have me fired? (pushes a button) You're confined until I say otherwise... The steel panels shut - silencing Archer's pleading voice. INT. ARCHER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY Sipping a beer, Castor cruises past the suburban bliss: men on hammocks; women chatting; kids playing tag. CASTOR (sickened) Jesus, what a life. Castor tries to catch a street address and rolls past... ARCHER'S HOUSE Dressed for work, Eve watches blandly as the car goes by. A moment later, it backs up and parks. Hiding the beer can, Castor forces a sheepish smile -- and gets out. She doesn't smile back. EVE I suppose it was only a matter of time before you forgot where we lived. CASTOR Sorry -- the job's been murder lately. Castor looks her over -- she's much sexier than he expected. EVE So what happened to your 'important' assignment? CASTOR What do you know about it? EVE I know exactly what you always tell me: Absolutely nothing. CASTOR It didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. Where are you off to? EVE I've got surgery. CASTOR Surgery -- are you okay? Then he spots her medical bag. Oops. EVE Don't try to charm me -- I'm still angry. There're leftovers in the fridge. CASTOR Have fun at work. Castor kisses her good-bye -- on the mouth. EVE What is with you? CASTOR Don't I usually kiss my wife? EVE No. Castor reacts as she gets in the car and pulls out. INT. ARCHER'S HOUSE - DAY Castor steps inside, looks around. CASTOR What a dump. INT. STUDY - DAY Castor sifts through Christmas cards from holidays past, studying the ones with photos. He's memorizing -- matching names to faces -- Wanda's, Buzz's, Lazarro's, etc. Something else catches his eye. He finds a floral notebook -- Eve's diary -- and pages through it. Then, he reads: CASTOR '... "Date-night" has been a typical failure... we haven't made love in almost two months...' What a loser ... Castor hears a voice. Glancing across the hall, he sees... GLIMPSES OF JAMIE As she walks back and forth in her room, talking on the phone -- and wearing only panties and a cropped T-shirt. Castor steps closer -- enjoying the view. CASTOR The plot thickens. INT. JAMIE'S ROOM - DAY Jamie stamps out her cigarette. JAMIE -- I got your E-mail, Karl. That poem was really sweet -- (spots Castor at door) Hang on a sec... She slams it -- but he gets his foot inside. JAMIE I'll call you back. (to Castor) You're not respecting my boundaries. CASTOR I'm coming in, Janie. Castor pushes menacingly into the room. JAMIE 'Janie'? Castor spots her correct name embroidered on a pillow. He gazes seductively -- unnerving Jamie as he steps toward her. CASTOR I don't think you heard me... Jamie... You have something I want ... He reaches for her -- and right past her. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from the desk. JAMIE Clarissa left those here. CASTOR (shrugs and lights up) I won't tell mom if you don't. JAMIE When did you start smoking? CASTOR You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here -- (blows a perfect smoke ring) Daddy's a new man. Jamie stares, astonished, as Castor goes out. INT. EREWHON PRISON - ARCHER'S CELL Fists bloody, voice hoarse, Archer pounds at the cell door. Exhausted, he finally stops -- staring at the face of his enemy in the mirrored door -- the enemy who now has total command of his life. INT. FBI - LOBBY CHECKPOINT - DAY Castor dons his stern "Archer" face as the gate guard checks his thumbprint ID. He's cleared and waved in. INT. FBI INTERROGATION BOOTH - DAY Buzz and Wanda watch Pollux through the two-way mirror. He's gorging himself on a big lunch. Castor arrives. BUZZ Listen, sir... we just want you to know... WANDA We're all really sorry about Tito... CASTOR Yeah, well, shit happens. Buzz and Wanda exchange a glance. To them, "Archer" is just avoiding his feelings again. CASTOR How's our star witness? BUZZ He hasn't told us a damn thing except what kind of mustard he likes on his tongue sandwiches. WANDA If that bomb is out there -- we're almost out of time. LAZARRO (O.S.) Archer! Lazarro stomps toward them... furious. Buzz and Wanda quickly excuse themselves. LAZARRO You made a deal with Pollux Troy? He's 'a manipulative psychopath.' Your own words, Jon! CASTOR Just let me do my job, Victor. LAZARRO The job I've been protecting for the last eight years. From now on, you go strictly by the book. Everything gets cleared by me. Understand? Lazarro stomps off. Castor watches him go, wheels turning. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Castor enters -- shutting down the mikes... and the blinds. CASTOR You're supposed to be snitching -- making me look good. POLLUX 'Look good'? (drops food in disgust) Seeing that face -- I want to vomit. CASTOR I'm the one who has to look at this butt-ugly mug every time I pass a mirror. Look at my eyes, my chin, my perfect nose -- gone! (considers his reflection) Archer took my life, so I'm taking his. Bro, I'm going straight. POLLUX Sounds like they took your brain, too? CASTOR Imagine Dillinger as J. Edgar Hoover. Carlos the Jackal running Interpol. Kaddafi heading the Mossad. Think of the secrets we could sell... Pollux listens carefully -- mind clicking like an abacus. POLLUX The drug agents we could expose. The movie stars we could blackmail! CASTOR That's just the bottom of the food chain. Pollux -- what would happen if somebody planted a bomb on Air Force One? POLLUX ... that somebody would get rich. And, I suppose, the nation would be pretty pissed-off. CASTOR Pissed-off, vulnerable... looking for someone to step in, take charge, give them hope again. What if that someone was an F.B.I. hero? A true Boy Scout and family man -- with a spotless past. Imagine where that guy could land -- if the timing's right. POLLUX

plays

How many times the word 'plays' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

instance

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well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

terror

How many times the word 'terror' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

eyes

How many times the word 'eyes' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

marlboros

How many times the word 'marlboros' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

cries

How many times the word 'cries' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

tight

How many times the word 'tight' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

laboured

How many times the word 'laboured' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

hurry

How many times the word 'hurry' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

moskowa

How many times the word 'moskowa' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

eyeballs

How many times the word 'eyeballs' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

panics

How many times the word 'panics' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

possessed

How many times the word 'possessed' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

round

How many times the word 'round' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

wind

How many times the word 'wind' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

copied

How many times the word 'copied' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

order

How many times the word 'order' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

examined

How many times the word 'examined' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

key

How many times the word 'key' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

acts

How many times the word 'acts' appears in the text?

well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled God's Revenge against Murther; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. For shame, she said, your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a spindle of! Stand back, said Nigel; I mean your father no injury--but I _will_ know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms. Your arms! repeated she; alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse. So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice-- It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will die ere I part with my property! It is indeed his own, mistress, said Nigel, and I do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet. I will account with you for it, then, --said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. This shall be properly fastened to-morrow, said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; to-night I will continue to watch him closely.--I wish you good repose. These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. D--n her, strike her down--silence her--beat her brains out! --while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of murder, and help. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. There is light in the kitchen, answered Martha Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have been expected. Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have _murdered_ him! CHAPTER XXV Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles. His rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; And well if they are such as may be answer'd In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she started up, and exclaiming-- There may be life yet! strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. Fear not, she cried, fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is dead--dead! While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence. It is in vain--it is in vain, said the daughter, desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderers; It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be thus; and now I witness it! She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes of this deed! Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him sharply. Be silent, she said, be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be silent, she said again, and in a yet sterner tone-- Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on her knees? Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. You are right, she said, somewhat contemptuously, and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate. Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of such violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly-- My moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly. I would, said Nigel, but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and-- True, most true, answered Martha, he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid. Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him, had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in particular of having committed the deed. Do _you_ suspect no one? answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to answer them. That's the rule of the game. Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean? Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to change his suits often. Send out, then, said Martha, and have him apprehended. If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with the higher powers, answered the judge. You would have him escape, resumed she, fixing her eyes on him sternly. By cock and pie, replied Hildebrod, did it depend on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers. I will have revenge--I _will_ have it, repeated she; and take heed you trifle not with me. Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have the means to get it. They who help me in my revenge, said Martha, shall share those means. Enough said, replied Hildebrod; and now I would have you go to my house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself. I will send for the old char-woman, replied Martha, and we have the stranger gentleman, besides. Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman! said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep conditions, I trust? I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd, said Nigel. Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame. A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to resist. And so, squire, said the aquatic emissary, my wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may. Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me? said Nigel. Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson. Did he send any token to me? said Nigel. Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it, said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he said,-- Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a twelve-oared barge? Where is the king just now, knowest thou? answered Lord Glenvarloch. The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as minnows. Well, replied Nigel, I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage. Ay, ay, master, replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he whispered, Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it. Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. He might mean well, she said, but he ought to know that the miserable had no friends. Nigel said, He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about to leave the Friars-- She interrupted him-- You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you. You go

distract

How many times the word 'distract' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

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well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

interrogatively

How many times the word 'interrogatively' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

how

How many times the word 'how' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

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well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

met

How many times the word 'met' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

shop

How many times the word 'shop' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

lemme

How many times the word 'lemme' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

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well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

strike

How many times the word 'strike' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

mrs.

How many times the word 'mrs.' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

confident

How many times the word 'confident' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

all

How many times the word 'all' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

washing

How many times the word 'washing' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

different

How many times the word 'different' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

supposed

How many times the word 'supposed' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

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well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

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well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

inspect

How many times the word 'inspect' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

fuse

How many times the word 'fuse' appears in the text?

well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?" She said she had been buying some ribbon. He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they _would_ go to Knocke or Bruges for a time. Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-bye," and gave him her hand again. Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends. Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly. He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.... They vanished round Henderson's corner. Gone! And he would never see her again--never! It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable. He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear. The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space. And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED 1 Now in the slack of that same day, after the midday dinner and before the coming of the afternoon customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the world. He did not call formally, entering and demanding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and mysterious manner. Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bobbing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He was stooping and craning and peering in the endeavour to see into the interior between and over the socks and stockings. Then he transferred his attention to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures suggested a suppressed excitement. Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued nocturnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but the texture was different. There was a quality about the yachting cap, an indefinable finality of dustiness, a shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forcible and fine, were less in the quality of Michael Angelo and more in that of the merely picturesque. But it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the interstices of the baby-linen. Kipps was by no means anxious to interview Chitterlow again. If he had felt sure that Chitterlow would not enter the shop he would have hid in the warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no idea of Chitterlow's limitations. He decided to keep up the shop in the shadows until Chitterlow reached the side window of the Manchester department and then to go outside as if to inspect the condition of the window and explain to him that things were unfavourable to immediate intercourse. He might tell him he had already lost his situation.... "Ullo, Chit'low," he said, emerging. "Very man I want to see," said Chitterlow, shaking with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He laid a hand on Kipps' arm. "How _old_ are you, Kipps?" "One and twenty," said Kipps. "Why?" "Talk about coincidences! And your name now? Wait a minute." He held out a finger. "_Is_ it Arthur?" "Yes," said Kipps. "You're the man," said Chitterlow. "What man?" "It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck," said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your mother's Christian name." He laughed and struggled with his coat for a space, produced a washing book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and finally a small pocket book, and from this, after dropping and recovering several visiting cards, he extracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Euphemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'. "Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a Bit of All Right as anyone _could_ have--outside a coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphemia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show." "Whose name--Euphemia?" asked Kipps. "Your mother's." "Lemme see what it says on the paper." Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned away. "You may say what you like," he said, addressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally. Kipps attempted to read. "'WADDY or KIPPS. If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, who----'" Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went down the column and every blessed name that seemed to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that. Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and real. See? Who was Waddy?" "Never heard his name." "Not Waddy?" "No!" Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the attempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't understand." "It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about the Waddy--that's a detail. What does it usually mean? You'll hear of something to your advantage--very well. I took that newspaper up to get my names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again and read that--I knew it was you. I believe in coincidences. People say they don't happen. _I_ say they do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly. Here you are. Here's one! Incredible? Not a bit of it! See? It's you! Kipps! Waddy be damned! It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're there. _I'm_ there. Fair _in_ it! Snap!" And he discharged his fingers like a pistol. "Never you mind about the 'Waddy.'" "Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitterlow's fingers. "You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet the seat of your only breeches on that! Don't you worry about the Waddy--that's as clear as day. You're about as right side up as a billiard ball--whatever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man! Read the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!" He shook it under Kipps' nose. Kipps became aware of the second apprentice watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity gave place to a more confident bearing. "'---- who was born at East Grinstead.' I certainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say----" "I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one edge of the paper and bringing his face close alongside Kipps'. "'----on September the first, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight----'" "_That's_ all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and Bean and get it----" "Get what?" "Whatever it is." Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write?" he asked. "Ra-ther." "But what d'you think it is?" "That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking three steps in some as yet uninvented dance. "That's where the joke comes in. It may be anything--it may be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come in? Eh?" Kipps was trembling slightly. "But----" he said, and thought. "If you was me----" he began. "About that Waddy----?" He glanced up and saw the second apprentice disappear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods in the window. "_What?_" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an answer. "Lor'! There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and made a prompt dive for the door. He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was demanding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "outside----?" "Seein' if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps. "Umph!" said Shalford. For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large in the street. There came one awful moment when Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the ground glass of the department door, and his bright, little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps' disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to the business in hand. He became aware that Shalford had asked a question. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs to-morrow, Sir," said Kipps. Presently he had a moment to himself again, and, taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little perplexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps"--did that imply two persons or one? He would ask Pierce or Buggins. Only---- It had always been impressed upon him that there was something demanding secrecy about his mother. "Don't you answer no questions about your mother," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you don't know, whatever it is they ask you." "Now this----?" Kipps' face became portentously careful and he tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard. He had always represented his father as being a "gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a butler--_a servant!_--would have seemed the maddest of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Emporium were equally reticent and vague, so great is their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about his real status in the world (he was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything), but he knew that there was a quality about his status that was--detrimental. Under the circumstances----? It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trouble to destroy the advertisement there and then. In which case he would have to explain to Chitterlow! "Eng!" said Mr. Kipps. "Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking; "Kipps, Forward!" He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket and sallied forth to the customers. "I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover a little stool I have. Anything would do--a remnant or anything----" The matter of the advertisement remained in abeyance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a thoroughly representative collection of the textile fabrics in his department to clear away. He was so angry about the little stool that the crumpled advertisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely forgotten. 2 Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference library. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit, would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two collars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys. Shirt?... M'm. There ought to be another collar somewhere." "Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that floated so delightfully about him, "Eu--phemia; it isn't a name _common_ people would give to a girl, is it?" "It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl," said Buggins, "----common or not." "Lor'!" said Kipps. "Why?" "It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia indeed! What next?... Good Lord!... That isn't one of my collars there, is it? under your bed?"... Kipps got him the collar. "I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said as he did so. After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Buggins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the "half sox," added to himself, "a thundering good mind." So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in spelling or composition, did as he had resolved. He came back into the bedroom about an hour afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the _Daily World Manager_, which came to him in rotation from Carshot. "Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up his hat. "Crib hunting?" "Mostly," said Kipps. "Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what else?" Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed and regarded the back of the _Daily World Manager_ thoughtfully. "Buggins," he said at last. Buggins lowered his paper and looked. "I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements mean that say so-and-so will hear of something greatly to his advantage?" "Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume reading. "How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left and that sort of thing?" Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more often than not." "But that ain't to his advantage." "They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins. "Often it's wives." "What you mean?" "Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back that way." "I suppose it _is_ legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps if someone was left a hundred pounds by someone----" "Hardly ever," said Buggins. "Well, 'ow----?" began Kipps and hesitated. Buggins resumed reading. He was very much excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!" he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks votes." "No fear," said Kipps. "They're different altogether," said Buggins. "They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky dishonesty about 'em--false witness and all that--of which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their courts of law--it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps--there's witnesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I tell you--not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of it. Now _we_----. Oh, _Damn_!" For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read. Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shalford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being extremely satirical indeed about their employer, undressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-temper. Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the affair of the letter he had just posted resumed possession of his mind he could not do so. He went over the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that letter. If it _should_ happen to be a hundred pounds! It _must_ be a hundred pounds! If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple of years even, before he got a Crib. Even if it was fifty pounds----! Buggins was already breathing regularly when Kipps spoke again. "_Bug_-gins," he said. Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore. "I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval. "_What's_ up now?" said Buggins unamiably. "'Spose _you_ saw an advertisement in a paper, with your name in it, see, asking you to come and see someone, like, so as to hear of something very much to your----" "Hide," said Buggins shortly. "But----" "I'd hide." "Er?" "Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side of the dark. He had been a fool to post that letter! Lord! _Hadn't_ he been a fool! 3 It was just five days and a half after the light had been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a young man with a white face and eyes bright and wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, although the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella, just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and turned to the right. He scanned each house narrowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughenden." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up at it. "Gollys!" he said at last in an awestricken whisper. It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in the drawing-room window. There was a splendid bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells--one marked "servants." Gollys! _Servants_, eh? He walked past away from it, with his eyes regarding it, and then turned and came back. He passed through a further indecision, and finally drifted away to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way along the Leas and put his arm over the back and regarded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very softly to himself, put his head first on one side and then on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly at it. A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps, removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned desperado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched him for a space, wondering how much he might have a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hughenden" reasserted itself. An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said, leaning forward, to the old gentleman. The old gentleman started and stared. "_Whad_ do you say?" he asked fiercely. "You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me." The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps, looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic intensity and blew at him by way of reply. "It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently. "Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes. "It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indignantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman. The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemptuously, at Kipps. "Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps. The old gentleman just glanced over his shoulder at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef' me this very morning," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been lef' me, neither." "Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by presently to remove Kipps. "It _'as_," said Kipps. He made no further remark to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a little less certitude at the house.... "I got----" he said and stopped. "It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he said. The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself, decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with me," he panted. "Give you in charge." "What game?" "Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman, and blew. "Besides," he added, "_look_ at you! I know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly and nodded to the horizon and coughed again. Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old gentleman and back to the house. Their conversation, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again. He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word, "Hughenden." It was all _right_! He looked over his shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so evidently past all reason! He hung for a moment some distance along the parade, as though some invisible string was pulling him back. When he could no longer see the house from the pavement he went out into the road. Then with an effort he snapped the string. He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser pocket and examined them. To such a confidence had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's portrait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean. It was right enough. It really was _all_ right. He replaced the coins with grave precaution and went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all right--he had it now--he was a rich man at large. He went up a street and round a corner and along another street, and started towards the Pavilion and changed his mind and came round back, resolved to go straight to the Emporium and tell them all. He was aware of someone crossing a road far off ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his present extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow. Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first of the whole thing! The playwright was marching buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and tomatoes.... He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and tell him of the amazing change in the Order of the Universe that had just occurred. Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began, and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart pace in pursuit. He came round the corner and Chitterlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavailingly and his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the pavement edge, staring about him. No good! But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing, it connected events together, joined him on again to the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly needed.... It was all right--all right. He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it. That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling was the thing to make this business real. He gripped his umbrella about the middle and walked very eagerly. He entered the Emporium through the Manchester department. He flung open the door (over whose ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehension, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation. Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and talking in fragments about the distinctive characteristics of Good Style. Kipps came up in front of the counter. "I say," he said; "what d'yer think?" "What?" said Pierce over the pin. "Guess." "You've slipped out because Teddy's in London." "Something more." "What?" "Been left a fortune." "Garn!" "I 'ave." "Get out!" "Straight. I been lef' twelve 'undred pounds--twelve 'undred pounds a year!" He moved towards the little door out of the department into the house, moving, as heralds say, _regardant passant_. Pierce stood with mouth wide open and pin poised in air. "No!" he said at last. "It's right," said Kipps, "and I'm going." And he fell over the doormat into the house. 4 It happened that Mr. Shalford was in London buying summer sale goods--and no doubt also interviewing aspirants to succeed Kipps. So that there was positively nothing to hinder a wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Emporium. All the masculine members began their report with the same formula. "Heard about Kipps?" The new girl in the cash desk had had it from Pierce and had dashed out into the fancy shop to be the first with the news on the fancy side. Kipps had been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand pounds a year. Kipps had been left twelve hundred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain, but the essential facts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium, not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting house. There was a general movement thither. Poor old Buggins had a customer and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it was Buggins. There was a sound of running to and fro and voices saying this, that and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!" "_What!_" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck. "One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence, to his customer. "Unexpectedly?" said the customer. "Quite," said the first apprentice.... "I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps," said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting house. There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner bell.) "Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good old Kipps." Booch rubbed one an mic hand upon the other. "You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the background. "I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss Mergle. "Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the glove department. "Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are you, Mr. Kipps?" "Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculously.... Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they were it was Kipps, except the

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went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

ill

How many times the word 'ill' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

rassendyll

How many times the word 'rassendyll' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

fool

How many times the word 'fool' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

ceased

How many times the word 'ceased' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

capital

How many times the word 'capital' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

lad

How many times the word 'lad' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

arranged

How many times the word 'arranged' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

distracts

How many times the word 'distracts' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

rolling

How many times the word 'rolling' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

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How many times the word 'herr' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

being

How many times the word 'being' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

besides

How many times the word 'besides' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

old

How many times the word 'old' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

silence

How many times the word 'silence' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

night

How many times the word 'night' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

overcoming

How many times the word 'overcoming' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

disaster

How many times the word 'disaster' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

countess

How many times the word 'countess' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

those

How many times the word 'those' appears in the text?

went on. "He left on Monday. To-day's Wednesday. The king has granted him an audience at four on Friday. Well, then--" "They counted on success," I cried, "and Rischenheim takes the letter!" "A copy, if I know Rupert of Hentzau. Yes, it was well laid. I like the men taking all the cabs! How much ahead had they, now." I did not know that, though I had no more doubt than he that Rupert's hand was in the business. "Well," he continued, "I am going to wire to Sapt to put Rischenheim off for twelve hours if he can; failing that, to get the king away from Zenda." "But Rischenheim must have his audience sooner or later," I objected. "Sooner or later--there's the world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We shall want your help." "And what are you going to do?" I cried, staring at him. He looked at me for a moment, and his face was crossed by conflicting feelings. I saw resolve there, obstinacy, and the scorn of danger; fun, too, and merriment; and, lastly, the same radiance I spoke of. He had been smoking a cigarette; now he threw the end of it into the grate and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. "I'm going to Zenda," said he. "To Zenda!" I cried, amazed. "Yes," said Rudolf. "I'm going again to Zenda, Fritz, old fellow. By heaven, I knew it would come, and now it has come!" "But to do what?" "I shall overtake Rischenheim or be hot on his heels. If he gets there first, Sapt will keep him waiting till I come; and if I come, he shall never see the king. Yes, if I come in time--" He broke into a sudden laugh. "What!" he cried, "have I lost my likeness? Can't I still play the king? Yes, if I come in time, Rischenheim shall have his audience of the king of Zenda, and the king will be very gracious to him, and the king will take his copy of the letter from him! Oh, Rischenheim shall have an audience of King Rudolf in the castle of Zenda, never fear!" He stood, looking to see how I received his plan; but amazed at the boldness of it, I could only lie back and gasp. Rudolf's excitement left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, he proceeded: "You see, there are two of them, Rupert and Rischenheim. Now you can't move for a day or two, that's certain. But there must be two of us there in Ruritania. Rischenheim is to try first; but if he fails, Rupert will risk everything and break through to the king's presence. Give him five minutes with the king, and the mischief's done! Very well, then; Sapt must keep Rupert at bay while I tackle Rischenheim. As soon as you can move, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know where you are." "But if you're seen, if you're found out?" "Better I than the queen's letter," said he. Then he laid his hand on my arm and said, quite quietly, "If the letter gets to the king, I and I only can do what must be done." I did not know what he meant; perhaps it was that he would carry off the queen sooner than leave her alone after her letter was known; but there was another possible meaning that I, a loyal subject, dared not inquire into. Yet I made no answer, for I was above all and first of all the queen's servant. Still I cannot believe that he meant harm to the king. "Come, Fritz," he cried, "don't look so glum. This is not so great an affair as the other, and we brought that through safe." I suppose I still looked doubtful, for he added, with a sort of impatience, "Well, I'm going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?" I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia's letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity. "I shall leave James with you," said Rudolf. "He'll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he'll carry it. He can shoot, too." He rose as he spoke. "I'll look in before I start," he added, "and hear what the doctor says about you." I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt's telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert's scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen's farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally--and of this at the time I knew nothing--had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert's attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources--the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha'd over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted. "You must not think of moving for a couple of days," he said; "but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly." I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee. "Oh, thank you, that is all settled," he said. "Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally." He was hardly gone when 'my friend Herr Schmidt'--alias Rudolf Rassendyll--was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been. "You see," he explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming to your wife's ears." "But couldn't we have laid the others by the heels?" "With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you're very ill." I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker's wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor's mind to this day. "Well, I'm off," said Rudolf. "But where?" "Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where's Rupert gone?" "I wish we knew." "I lay he won't be far off." "Are you armed?" "The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You'll let Sapt know when you come?" "Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?" "As if you need tell me that, old fellow!" "Where do you go from the station?" "To Zenda, through the forest," he answered. "I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time." "How will you get hold of Sapt?" "We must leave something to the minute." "God bless you, Rudolf." "The king sha'n't have the letter, Fritz." There was a moment's silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind. "I never thought I should see her again," he said. "I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again--it's worth something." "How will you see her?" Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me--a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind. "But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter." "I know you will," said I. He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room. "The carriage is at the door, sir," said he. "Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away." "Very well, sir." I raised myself in bed. "Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it. "Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage. The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come. The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience, or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg, and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the king must not hear. His task sounded simple, but it was not easy; for he did not know where Rischenheim was, and so could not prevent his coming; besides, the king had been very pleased to learn of the count's approaching visit, since he desired to talk with him on the subject of a certain breed of dogs, which the count bred with great, his Majesty with only indifferent success; therefore he had declared that nothing should interfere with his reception of Rischenheim. In vain Sapt told him that a large boar had been seen in the forest, and that a fine day's sport might be expected if he would hunt next day. "I shouldn't be back in time to see Rischenheim," said the king. "Your Majesty would be back by nightfall," suggested Sapt. "I should be too tired to talk to him, and I've a great deal to discuss." "You could sleep at the hunting-lodge, sire, and ride back to receive the count next morning." "I'm anxious to see him as soon as may be." Then he looked up at Sapt with a sick man's quick suspicion. "Why shouldn't I see him?" he asked. "It's a pity to miss the boar, sire," was all Sapt's plea. The king made light of it. "Curse the boar!" said he. "I want to know how he gets the dogs' coats so fine." As the king spoke a servant entered, carrying a telegram for Sapt. The colonel took it and put it in his pocket. "Read it," said the king. He had dined and was about to go to bed, it being nearly ten o'clock. "It will keep, sire," answered Sapt, who did not know but that it might be from Wintenberg. "Read it," insisted the king testily. "It may be from Rischenheim. Perhaps he can get here sooner. I should like to know about those dogs. Read it, I beg." Sapt could do nothing but read it. He had taken to spectacles lately, and he spent a long while adjusting them and thinking what he should do if the message were not fit for the king's ear. "Be quick, man, be quick!" urged the irritable king. Sapt had got the envelope open at last, and relief, mingled with perplexity, showed in his face. "Your Majesty guessed wonderfully well. Rischenheim can be here at eight to-morrow morning," he said, looking up. "Capital!" cried the king. "He shall breakfast with me at nine, and I'll have a ride after the boar when we've done our business. Now are you satisfied?" "Perfectly, sire," said Sapt, biting his moustache. The king rose with a yawn, and bade the colonel good-night. "He must have some trick I don't know with those dogs," he remarked, as he went out. And "Damn the dogs!" cried Colonel Sapt the moment that the door was shut behind his Majesty. But the colonel was not a man to accept defeat easily. The audience that he had been instructed to postpone was advanced; the king, whom he had been told to get away from Zenda, would not go till he had seen Rischenheim. Still there are many ways of preventing a meeting. Some are by fraud; these it is no injustice to Sapt to say that he had tried; some are by force, and the colonel was being driven to the conclusion that one of these must be his resort. "Though the king," he mused, with a grin, "will be furious if anything happens to Rischenheim before he's told him about the dogs." Yet he fell to racking his brains to find a means by which the count might be rendered incapable of performing the service so desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a distinguished nobleman. "I can think of nothing," muttered Sapt, rising from his chair and moving across towards the window in search of the fresh air that a man so often thinks will give him a fresh idea. He was in his own quarters, that room of the new chateau which opens on to the moat immediately to the right of the drawbridge as you face the old castle; it was the room which Duke Michael had occupied, and almost opposite to the spot where the great pipe had connected the window of the king's dungeon with the waters of the moat. The bridge was down now, for peaceful days had come to Zenda; the pipe was gone, and the dungeon's window, though still barred, was uncovered. The night was clear and fine, and the still water gleamed fitfully as the moon, half-full, escaped from or was hidden by passing clouds. Sapt stood staring out gloomily, beating his knuckles on the stone sill. The fresh air was there, but the fresh idea tarried. Suddenly the constable bent forward, craning his head out and down, far as he could stretch it, towards the water. What he had seen, or seemed dimly to see, is a sight common enough on the surface of water--large circular eddies, widening from a centre; a stone thrown in makes them, or a fish on the rise. But Sapt had thrown no stone, and the fish in the moat were few and not rising then. The light was behind Sapt, and threw his figure into bold relief. The royal apartments looked out the other way; there were no lights in the windows this side the bridge, although beyond it the guards' lodgings and the servants' offices still showed a light here and there. Sapt waited till the eddies ceased. Then he heard the faintest sound, as of a large body let very gently into the water; a moment later, from the moat right below him, a man's head emerged. "Sapt!" said a voice, low but distinct. The old colonel started, and, resting both hands on the sill, bent further out, till he seemed in danger of overbalancing. "Quick--to the ledge on the other side. You know," said the voice, and the head turned; with quick, quiet strokes the man crossed the moat till he was hidden in the triangle of deep shade formed by the meeting of the drawbridge and the old castle wall. Sapt watched him go, almost stupefied by the sudden wonder of hearing that voice come to him out of the stillness of the night. For the king was abed; and who spoke in that voice save the king and one other? Then, with a curse at himself for his delay, he turned and walked quickly across the room. Opening the door, he found himself in the passage. But here he ran right into the arms of young Bernenstein, the officer of the guard, who was going his rounds. Sapt knew and trusted him, for he had been with us all through the siege of Zenda, when Michael kept the king a prisoner, and he bore marks given him by Rupert of Hentzau's ruffians. He now held a commission as lieutenant in the cuirassiers of the King's Guard. He noticed Sapt's bearing, for he cried out in a low voice, "Anything wrong, sir?" "Bernenstein, my boy, the castle's all right about here. Go round to the front, and, hang you, stay there," said Sapt. The officer stared, as well he might. Sapt caught him by the arm. "No, stay here. See, stand by the door there that leads to the royal apartments. Stand there, and let nobody pass. You understand?" "Yes, sir." "And whatever you hear, don't look round." Bernenstein's bewilderment grew greater; but Sapt was constable, and on Sapt's shoulders lay the responsibility for the safety of Zenda and all in it. "Very well, sir," he said, with a submissive shrug, and he drew his sword and stood by the door; he could obey, although he could not understand. Sapt ran on. Opening the gate that led to the bridge, he sped across. Then, stepping on one side and turning his face to the wall, he descended the steps that gave foothold down to the ledge running six or eight inches above the water. He also was now in the triangle of deep darkness, yet he knew that a man was there, who stood straight and tall, rising above his own height. And he felt his hand caught in a sudden grip. Rudolf Rassendyll was there, in his wet drawers and socks. "Is it you?" he whispered. "Yes," answered Rudolf; "I swam round from the other side and got here. Then I threw in a bit of mortar, but I wasn't sure I'd roused you, and I didn't dare shout, so I followed it myself. Lay hold of me a minute while I get on my breeches: I didn't want to get wet, so I carried my clothes in a bundle. Hold me tight, it's slippery." "In God's name what brings you here?" whispered Sapt, catching Rudolf by the arm as he was directed. "The queen's service. When does Rischenheim come?" "To-morrow at eight." "The deuce! That's earlier than I thought. And the king?" "Is here and determined to see him. It's impossible to move him from it." There was a moment's silence; Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel deuced damp underneath, though." "You'll soon get dry," grinned Sapt. "You'll be kept moving, you see." "I've lost my hat." "Seems to me you've lost your head too." "You'll find me both, eh, Sapt?" "As good as your own, anyhow," growled the constable. "Now the boots, and I'm ready." Then he asked quickly, "Has the king seen or heard from Rischenheim?" "Neither, except through me." "Then why is he so set on seeing him?" "To find out what gives dogs smooth coats." "You're serious? Hang you, I can't see your face." "Absolutely." "All's well, then. Has he got a beard now?" "Yes." "Confound him! Can't you take me anywhere to talk?" "What the deuce are you here at all for?" "To meet Rischenheim." "To meet--?" "Yes. Sapt, he's got a copy of the queen's letter." Sapt twirled his moustache. "I've always said as much," he remarked in tones of satisfaction. He need not have said it; he would have been more than human not to think it. "Where can you take me to?" asked Rudolf impatiently. "Any room with a door and a lock to it," answered old Sapt. "I command here, and when I say 'Stay out'--well, they don't come in." "Not the king?" "The king is in bed. Come along," and the constable set his toe on the lowest step. "Is there nobody about?" asked Rudolf, catching his arm. "Bernenstein; but he will keep his back toward us." "Your discipline is still good, then, Colonel?" "Pretty well for these days, your Majesty," grunted Sapt, as he reached the level of the bridge. Having crossed, they entered the chateau. The passage was empty, save for Bernenstein, whose broad back barred the way from the royal apartments. "In here," whispered Sapt, laying his hand on the door of the room whence he had come. "All right," answered Rudolf. Bernenstein's hand twitched, but he did not look round. There was discipline in the castle of Zenda. But as Sapt was half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For a moment the four stood thus; then Rudolf passed Sapt, thrust Bernenstein's brawny shoulders (the young man had not looked round) out of the way, and, falling on his knee before the queen, seized her hand and kissed it. Bernenstein could see now without looking round, and if astonishment could kill, he would have been a dead man that instant. He fairly reeled and leant against the wall, his mouth hanging open. For the king was in bed, and had a beard; yet there was the king, fully dressed and clean shaven, and he was kissing the queen's hand, while she gazed down on him in a struggle between amazement, fright, and joy. A soldier should be prepared for anything, but I cannot be hard on young Bernenstein's bewilderment. Yet there was in truth nothing strange in the queen seeking to see old Sapt that night, nor in her guessing where he would most probably be found. For she had asked him three times whether news had come from Wintenberg and each time he had put her off with excuses. Quick to forbode evil, and conscious of the pledge to fortune that she had given in her letter, she had determined to know from him whether there were really cause for alarm, and had stolen, undetected, from her apartments to seek him. What filled her at once with unbearable apprehension and incredulous joy was to find Rudolf present in actual flesh and blood, no longer in sad longing dreams or visions, and to feel his live lips on her hand. Lovers count neither time nor danger; but Sapt counted both, and no more than a moment had passed before, with eager imperative gestures, he beckoned them to enter the room. The queen obeyed, and Rudolf followed her. "Let nobody in, and don't say a word to anybody," whispered Sapt, as he entered, leaving Bernenstein outside. The young man was half-dazed still, but he had sense to read the expression in the constable's eyes and to learn from it that he must give his life sooner than let the door be opened. So with drawn sword he stood on guard. It was eleven o'clock when the queen came, and midnight had struck from the great clock of the castle before the door opened again and Sapt came out. His sword was not drawn, but he had his revolver in his hand. He shut the door silently after him and began at once to talk in low, earnest, quick tones to Bernenstein. Bernenstein listened intently and without interrupting. Sapt's story ran on for eight or nine minutes. Then he paused, before asking: "You understand now?" "Yes, it is wonderful," said the young man, drawing in his breath. "Pooh!" said Sapt. "Nothing is wonderful: some things are unusual." Bernenstein was not convinced, and shrugged his shoulders in protest. "Well?" said the constable, with a quick glance at him. "I would die for the queen, sir," he answered, clicking his heels together as though on parade. "Good," said Sapt. "Then listen," and he began again to talk. Bernenstein nodded from time to time. "You'll meet him at the gate," said the constable, "and bring him straight here. He's not to go anywhere else, you understand me?" "Perfectly, Colonel," smiled young Bernenstein. "The king will be in this room--the king. You know who is the king?" "Perfectly, Colonel." "And when the interview is ended, and we go to breakfast--" "I know who will be the king then. Yes, Colonel." "Good. But we do him no harm unless--" "It is necessary." "Precisely." Sapt turned away with a little sigh. Bernenstein was an apt pupil, but the colonel was exhausted by so much explanation. He knocked softly at the door of the room. The queen's voice bade him enter, and he passed in. Bernenstein was left alone again in the passage, pondering over what he had heard and rehearsing the part that it now fell to him to play. As he thought he may well have raised his head proudly. The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?" "In a minute, Lieutenant." "I should like to kiss her hand." "Well, if you think it worth waiting a quarter of an hour for!" said Sapt, with a slight smile. "You said a minute, sir." "So did she," answered the constable. Nevertheless it was a quarter of an hour before Rudolf Rassendyll opened the door and the queen appeared on the threshold. She was very pale, and she had been crying, but her eyes were happy and her air firm. The moment he saw her, young Bernenstein fell on his knee and raised her hand to his lips. "To the death, madame," said he, in a trembling voice. "I knew it, sir," she answered graciously. Then she looked round on the three of them. "Gentlemen," said she,

meeting

How many times the word 'meeting' appears in the text?