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A PAIR OF EARS,

I.

'MR. FAULKNER, I have news for you,' said the Iviza vice-consul, entering the room in which the other was seated at a table over some brandy-and-water and an ancient periodical.

'News! I wonder how you get at it in this den of a place. Is it that Don John's hen has given birth to a double-yolked egg, or what?'

'Now, really, sir, I'm in earnest. Listen. It was only a halfhour ago that I was with his illustriousness the Bishop, who, you know, lives for the present in the high part of the town, where one can see towards Formentera. We were regarding the water when, lo! a noble yacht of the English kind passed through the sound, and seemed to drop her anchor within a mile of the rocks. Then she let off a little boat, and one, two, three, four people descend into her two ladies, and two mariners, in blue and white. Well, sir, I was surprised. But I forget all about it in a little while, until I meet the lieutenant, who run towards me near the drawbridge and say I be needed. "There is," said he, " an English lady of distinguished birth on the Marina, and she is inflamed with Don John because of the dirtiness of his rooms. She demands the English consul, and I entreat you to go and see her!" Hearing this I am agitated, Mr. Faulkner, for Iviza does not receive many visitors of rank. But I make all speed and arrive in time to console Don John. The man had-really he had-told her ladyship she might go on her knees to him for a bed, and even then he would not give it her. You know what a man he is, an hidalgo to the toe-nails! But I made that all right, and for the present there will be peace. And now, sir, you being an Englishman, you will come to make her ladyship's acquaintance, will you not?'

Mr. Faulkner had been much interested in this story. Towards the close of it he had glanced at himself in the mirror, and straightened his back and curled his moustaches. The reflection seemed to please him.

'Well, 'tis a rum go!' he exclaimed, 'What's her name?'

'She is the Countess of Squirm-her ladyship's maid informed me--and what you would call an "original," I imagine.'

Oh, really! Of course, one knows the Earl of Squirm as well as one's a, b, c. Then, I take it, she isn't in her first youth, Señor

Marianas?'

'Well, no, sir. She is grey, but so sprightly, and yet quite the aristocrat. I beg of you to share the responsibility of her with me!'

With all the pleasure in life, Señor Marianas. I will wash my hands, and then I will be with you.'

Mr. Faulkner was a dark-horse sort of man of about five-andthirty. He had come to Iviza, which is the smallest of the Balearic Islands, about a month back. Any other people except Spaniards would have been untiring in their efforts to learn what he had come to Iviza for. He had no business transactions with the fig and nut growers, and he didn't know a soul in the place. However, Iviza accepted him, and there he was.

He was really a very shady sort of customer--a man who had played many parts in life, very few of them being to his credit. It behoved him to obliterate himself for awhile, and as he had journeyed from the Riviera to Barcelona, from Barcelona to Palma, the capital of Majorca, and thence to Iviza, which is some fifty miles away from Majorca, the detective who ferreted him out would be a man with an uncommon amount of talent in him.

'And now, my dear sir, are you ready?' asked the vice-consul, with a show of genial impatience.

'Perfectly. Perhaps, if you were to mention incidentally that I am one of the Trotley Faulkners, it might interest her ladyship. We are an old family, you know.'

Ah yes, sir; and you English have all the pride of birth that we Castilians also possess. A fine thing, sir, to have blue blood in the veins!'

'Oh, very; nearly as fine as to have plenty of cash in one's pockets.'

It was a funny scene this introduction.

The Countess of Squirm was seated in the dining-room of Don John's hotel, watching through her long-handled glasses the process of the puchero for the evening meal. Mademoiselle Marie, her maid, stood by the window looking very disconsolately at the rather muddy water of the little inner harbour of the place. Don John was stumping about the room with a good deal

of swagger and an air of challenge that seemed to forebode another battle royal at any moment. And the fat-armed cookmaid, who was making the puchero, now and again peeped up from the mess of crabs' legs and mutton snippings to examine the Countess's jewels and head-dress, and to make some request of Don John which that gentleman immediately blocked with a testy Caramba, no! it is impossible.'

'Your ladyship,' said the vice-consul, advancing with a profound obeisance, this is the English gentleman I have already spoke about-Mr. Faulkner-if you please!'

The Countess shot a quick searching glance at the man, and said Good afternoon!' in the most casual manner.

Mademoiselle Marie, who was a Swiss girl of some five-andtwenty years, felt much more interested. She was rather pretty, and had a trick of pleasing British males.

'Surely, Countess,' observed Mr. Faulkner in a very easy tone, 'you are much to be pitied for being in Iviza.'

and

'Oh, am I? Is it such a very bad sort of hole, then?'
"Well, your ladyship sees what hotel accommodation it has,

'Oh, there's nothing so very distressing about this—at least to me--I do assure you. I have lived for six weeks on end in Bedouin tents, and reckon myself an old traveller, sir!'

'That is something, certainly. I do hope you will not find the inconveniences of Iviza quite too oppressive. For my part

'Ah yes, why are you here, Mr. Faulkner? There's no shooting to speak of, the guide-book says.'

'No, I am no sportsman. I wanted seclusion for a time, to get through some-literary work.'

'Really?' exclaimed the Countess in an aroused manner. 'How very interesting! Can you play cribbage?'

'I think I remember enough of it to say "Yes.""

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'Then I tell you what, Mr. Faulkner; if you don't mind, we'll have a tussle this evening. Cribbage is one of my pet weaknesses. Squirm hates it, I am sorry to say, but he does not stand in the way of my playing. My poor mother had the same passion, and I have made a point of teaching it to my children. I wouldn't give a fig for a man or woman who doesn't know it.-Marie !' "Your ladyship.'

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Unpack the V case, and get out the cards and cribbage-board. Shall we say at six this evening, then?'

'I am quite at your ladyship's commands,' said Faulkner, much astonished.

'Thank you. Au revoir!'

'Well, I'll be hanged if I ever met such a woman!' exclaimed Mr. Faulkner when he was again outside, and the familiar smell of the Iviza sewage matter assailed his nose. 'Anyhow, we'll see how the evening turns out.'

The Countess of Squirm was a chartered eccentric. She did things that would have distracted a husband less long-suffering than the Earl of Squirm. The Earl, however, let her go her own gait. She was his senior by nearly ten years; immensely rich, and a Roman Catholic. Because she was so rich, and a Catholic, the Earl, who was poor and Protestant, felt that he could not, even if he would, put his veto upon her propensities for gadding here, there, and everywhere, just when the whim took her.

Besides, at sixty a woman may generally go where she pleases in the world, and be safe from molestation.

Some said the Countess of Squirm was a second Lady Hester Stanhope. It was only half a compliment. She had characteristics in common with the great Lady Hester; but, unlike Lady Hester, with all her eccentricity, she was sensible enough at heart. She was not in the least disposed to make herself into a prophetess, or anything of the kind.

She was an original woman of the world, who enjoyed her originality and the world. This seems a satisfactory brief portrayal of her.

And So, when she told the Delayahs that she would feel obliged to them if they would put her and her maid ashore in Iviza, it was felt that objections would be futile. The Delayahs protested, of course, that they did not like to leave her ladyship in a remote Spanish island, and alone. They insisted upon anchoring off Iviza to give her a chance of rejoining the yacht. But all this had no effect upon the Countess, and she told Mr. Delayah so flatly that she had had enough of his yacht and its luxuries, and that she would not go on board it again, that the gentleman was almost huffed. And so, when the boat returned to it, the master dallied off Iviza no longer, but put the vessel's head towards Palma of Majorca without more hesitation. Men don't understand women like Lady Squirm.

II.

THEIR first evening at cribbage was decidedly amusing to the Spaniards who were in the hotel. They had to sit to it in the dining-room when the gentlemen had done with their wine; and ten or twelve bad cigars were being smoked while they cut the cards and played.

Marie, the maid, thought it all extremely odious.

She preferred the English to Spaniards. And it certainly was trying to have to sit thus, as it were, on guard over an elderly lady who was well able to take care of herself.

As for the Countess, she was in high spirits. Situations of this kind were a real cordial to her. She showed remarkable vivacity, and Mr. Faulkner quite fancied he was getting well established in her ladyship's good graces. Fortunately for him (or perhaps unfortunately) he was a smart player. But he had the tact to bring each game to as close a fight as possible.

Towards ten o'clock, when they had played about twenty games, the Countess yawned without covering her mouth, and pushed the cribbage-board away.

'That will do, thank you, Mr. Faulkner, for the present. I owe you for seven games, do I not? Seven times five are thirtyfive—I'll give it you in English money, if you don't mind. Marie, pay Mr. Faulkner thirty-five shillings. Good-night!'

'Just as if I were a hairdresser, or something of the kind,' muttered Mr. Faulkner to himself with a frown. But he squeezed the girl's pretty little hand when she offered him two sovereigns with a request for change.

'Do you want a receipt?' he asked.

'Monsieur !' exclaimed Marie, much shocked; and then she followed the Countess.

For three mortal days this life lasted, save for a couple of hours in the morning, when the Countess took the air in one of the somewhat rough little carts of Iviza. She and Mr. Faulkner were always at cribbage. In the course of that time the gentleman won about five pounds. It was not much, but it sufficed to pay his expenses at Iviza for a fortnight.

On the fourth morning the vice-consul bustled into the hotel.

"Your ladyship,' he said hurriedly, there is an opportunity

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