Cashel Byron's Profession

Meanwhile Mrs. Byron, not suspecting the importance of the doctor's

note, and happening to be in a hurry when it arrived, laid it by

unopened, intending to read it at her leisure. She would have

forgotten it altogether but for a second note which came two days

later, requesting some acknowledgment of the previous communication.

On learning the truth she immediately drove to Moncrief House, and

there abused the doctor as he had never been abused in his life

before; after which she begged his pardon, and implored him to

assist her to recover her darling boy. When he suggested that she

should offer a reward for information and capture she indignantly

refused to spend a farthing on the little ingrate; wept and accused

herself of having driven him away by her unkindness; stormed and

accused the doctor of having treated him harshly; and, finally, said

that she would give one hundred pounds to have him back, but that

she would never speak to him again. The doctor promised to undertake

the search, and would have promised anything to get rid of his

visitor. A reward of fifty pounds wag offered. But whether the fear

of falling into the clutches of the law for murderous assault

stimulated Cashel to extraordinary precaution, or whether he had

contrived to leave the country in the four days which elapsed

between his flight and the offer of the reward, the doctor's efforts

were unsuccessful; and he had to confess their failure to Mrs.

Byron. She agreeably surprised him by writing a pleasant letter to

the effect that it was very provoking, and that she could never

thank him sufficiently for all the trouble he had taken. And so the

matter dropped.

Long after that generation of scholars had passed away from Moncrief

House, the name of Cashel Byron was remembered there as that of a

hero who, after many fabulous exploits, had licked a master and

bolted to the Spanish Main.

III There was at this time in the city of Melbourne, in Australia, a

wooden building, above the door of which was a board inscribed

"GYMNASIUM AND SCHOOL OF ARMS." In the long, narrow entry hung a

framed manuscript which set forth that Ned Skene, ex-champion of

England and the colonies, was to be heard of within daily by

gentlemen desirous of becoming proficient in the art of

self-defence. Also the terms on which Mrs. Skene, assisted by a

competent staff of professors, would give lessons in dancing,

deportment, and calisthenics.

One evening a man sat smoking on a common wooden chair outside the

door of this establishment. On the ground beside him were some tin

tacks and a hammer, with which he had just nailed to the doorpost a

card on which was written in a woman's handwriting: "WANTED A MALE

ATTENDANT WHO CAN KEEP ACCOUNTS. INQUIRE WITHIN." The smoker was a

powerful man, with a thick neck that swelled out beneath his broad,

flat ear-lobes. He had small eyes, and large teeth, over which his

lips were slightly parted in a good-humored but cunning smile. His

hair was black and close-cut; his skin indurated; and the bridge of

his nose smashed level with his face. The tip, however, was

uninjured. It was squab and glossy, and, by giving the whole feature

an air of being on the point of expanding to its original shape,

produced a snubbed expression which relieved the otherwise

formidable aspect of the man, and recommended him as probably a

modest and affable fellow when sober and unprovoked. He seemed about

fifty years of age, and was clad in a straw hat and a suit of white

linen.