«The British Barbarians»

This Respectability seems a very great fetich. I was obliged at last, in order to ensure a night's lodging of any sort, to appease it by promising I'd go up to London by the first train to-day, and fetch down my luggage."

    "Then you've things at Charing Cross, in the cloak-room perhaps?" Philip suggested, somewhat relieved; for he felt sure Bertram Ingledew must have told Miss Blake it was HE who had recommended him to Heathercliff House for furnished apartments.

    "Oh, dear, no; nothing," Bertram responded cheerfully. "Not a sack to my back. I've only what I stand up in. And I called this morning just to ask as I passed if you could kindly direct me to an emporium in London where I could set myself up in all that's necessary."

    "A WHAT?" Philip interposed, catching quick at the unfamiliar word with blank English astonishment, and more than ever convinced, in spite of denial, that the stranger was an American.

    "An emporium," Bertram answered, in the most matter-of-fact voice: "a magazine, don't you know; a place where they supply things in return for money. I want to go up to London at once this morning and buy what I require there."

    "Oh, A SHOP, you mean," Philip replied, putting on at once his most respectable British sabbatarian air. "I can tell you of the very best tailor in London, whose cut is perfect; a fine flower of tailors: but NOT to-day. You forget you're in England, and this is Sunday. On the Continent, it's different: but you'll find no decent shops here open to-day in town or country."

    Bertram Ingledew drew one hand over his high white brow with a strangely puzzled air. "No more I will," he said slowly, like one who by degrees half recalls with an effort some forgotten fact from dim depths of his memory. "I ought to have remembered, of course. Why, I knew that, long ago. I read it in a book on the habits and manners of the English people. But somehow, one never recollects these taboo days, wherever one may be, till one's pulled up short by them in the course of one's travels. Now, what on earth am I to do? A box, it seems, is the Open, Sesame of the situation. Some mystic value is attached to it as a moral amulet. I don't believe that excellent Miss Blake would consent to take me in for a second night without the guarantee of a portmanteau to respectablise me."

    We all have moments of weakness, even the most irreproachable Philistine among us; and as Bertram said those words in rather a piteous voice, it occurred to Philip Christy that the loan of a portmanteau would be a Christian act which might perhaps simplify matters for the handsome and engaging stranger. Besides, he was sure, after all—mystery or no mystery—Bertram Ingledew was Somebody.