Part 16 (1/2)

ON SECRET PassAGES

I was hearing the other day of an old house in Sussex where, while doing some repairs, the builders' e which they traced for two ? Why is everything to do with underground passages so interesting? It is, I suppose, because they are usually secret, and the very word secret, no : secret drawers, secret cupboards, secret chae is best, because it leads from one place to another, and either war or love called it into being: war or love, or, as in the case of priests' hiding holes, religious persecution, which is a branch of war

Nothing can deprive the secret passage of its gla, through which we pass so naturally day after day Any private excavation is exciting; to enter a dark cellar, even, carries a certain emotion How mysterious are crypts!

Hoesos back the lawless, turbulent past of Florence round but overground, yet no less dra above the Ponte Vecchio, unites the Pitti and the Uffizi and made it possible, unseen by the Florentines, to transfer bodies of armed men froround passage idea which gave the Druce Case such possibilities of mystery and romance That a duke shouldidea; but without the underground passage connecting Baker Street with Cavendish Square the story was no ret that it was not true; and even now soht to take it in hand and make a real ro his own ho his coronet and robes and changing _en route_ so unseen (by another trap door) in the Bazaar, all s his hands It would be not only thrilling, but such a satire on ducal dulness And then the great Law Court scenes, the rival heirs, the impassioned counsel, the vast surave, and finally the discovery that there was no body there after all--nothing but bricks--and the fantastic story really was fact! There has been no better plot since ”Monte Cristo,” and that, you re had not the Abbe Faria excavated the secret passage froh which Edmond was able to re-enter the world and start upon his career of syave such likelihood to the Druce allegations was the circumstance that the Duke of Portland spent so round A man who is known to do that erations

Another reason for wishi+ng the Druce story to be true is that, if it were true, if one aristocrat thus duplicated and enriched his life, others also would do so; for there are no single instances; and this round passages constructed to pro would beco pasti But alas!

Just as an ordinary desk takes on a new character directly one is told that it has a secret drawer, so does even a whisper of a secret passage transfigure thein Gloucester not so very long ago, and needing a resting-place for the night, I automatically chose the hotel which claimed, in the advertisement, to date froe to the cathedral The fact that, as the young lady in the office assured er is accessible, made very little difference: the idea of it was the attraction and determined the choice of the inn The Y M C A headquarters at Brighton on the Old Steyne ceases to be under the dominion of those initials--four letters which, for all their earnest of usefulness, are as far reue as any could be--and becomes a totally different structure when one is told that when, long before its conversion, Mrs Fitzherbert lived there, an underground passage existed between it and the Pavilion for the use of the First Gentleman in Europe Whether it is fact or fancy I cannot say, but that the Pavilion has a hidden staircase and an underground passage to the Dome I happen to know A hidden staircase has hardly fewer adventurous potentialities than a secret passage I was told of one at Greenwich Hospital: in the wing built by Charles II is a secret staircase in the wall leading to the apartments set apart for (need I say?) Mistress Eleanor Gwynne?

These roo effect of modernity, are now offices

LITTLE MISS BANKS

To many people wholly free fro the salt, they are careful to throw a little over the left shoulder, and do not walk under ladders unless with crossed thu May blossoms into the house--to these people, otherwise so free fro to knohat great numbers of their fellow-creatures resort daily to such a black art as fortune-telling by the cards

Yet quite respectable, God-fearing, church-going old ladies, and probably old gentleer and therefore naturally more frivolous folk; and manyhabit

Particularly women Those well-thumbed packs of cards that we knoell are not wholly dedicated to ”Patience,” I can assure you

All want to be told the sa forth But each searcher into the dierous future has, of course, individualseven ti the elfish Goddess, Caprice

There is little Miss Banks, for exa would induce little Miss Banks to leave the house in thewhat the cards promised her, and so open and impressionable are her mind and heart that she is still interested in the colour of the ro across her path The cards, as you know, are great on colours, all roups; dark (which has the preference), fair, and et little Miss Banks to read your fate (but you must of course shuffle the pack yourself), there are but three kinds of char and to be desired), fair, and reat fun to watch little Miss Banks at her necro the future's secrets fro to you froain, ”I see a voyage over water”

Or very seriously, ”There's a death”

You gasp

”No, it's not yours A fair woh ”Only a fair woman's!” you say ”Go on”