The Argosy — page 51: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PHANTOM ARMY. 243 ‘They told me at 92 that her name’s Gavarnie and slie’sa foreigner,’’ he said quickly. ‘‘ Very quiet and respectable party and keeps company, sir. A widder lady may be—may be not. Back yard’s full of champagne cases and there isn’t no washing hung out. She’s not much there, but she lives alone and plays the piano. When any one stays in the house, it’s a Spanish gentleman—a count they think he is, but they don’t know for certain. - All the bills are paid every week, sir. Two pound fourteen for fruit last week, which is considerable, you’ll admit. ‘Three servants is kept, and two are women. ‘There is nothing else, sir.’’ ‘‘ Benjamin,’’ I said, ‘‘ you ought to be at Scotland Vard.’’ He laughed again, still nervously. ‘The kitchen’s my newspaper,’’ he said, ‘‘ and I don’t want no better. You are dining out, sir ?’’ ‘Of course—but I shall breakfast here tomorrow ?”? The old man looked at me in his quick, nervous way. I believe he would have given a sovereign to have known why I sent him to that gloomy street of Bayswater. ‘““That’s all, Benjamin,’’ I exclaimed. He shuffled from the room, sighing. The burden of my poverty was heavy, but he shared it uncomplainingly. ‘‘ Where you go, I go,’’ he had said when misfortune overtook us, ‘‘ to the world’s end if it is to be, sir.’’ He meant- his words, though, God knows, I might as well, at that time, have talked of carrying him to the moon as to the world’s end. Whena solemn person in Portugal Street pronounces your ‘public examination’’ finished and gives you certain good warning against rash and hazardous expenditure, it is not in my experience that he adds to that advice a sum sufficient to insure the payment of your comirig butcher’s bill. When I was declared a bankrupt, and all that I had went to the Jews, and they took the very rings ‘from my fingers, and sent me out to this exile of a two pair back in the Marylebone Road, Benjamin alone was left to me. I could not raise money on him and so he stayed. Possibly, if it had been otherwise he would have gone. ‘They used to say in the tenth that I would play for my own right hand. I believe they were right. Benjamin left the room on this afternoon of which I am writing, and I walked to my window, thinking again of that strange night, now a week gone, when the monotony of my life had been broken for an instant by the apparition of the woman and the strange things I had seen in her house. Not for an hour, I believe, did the mystery of that day cease to shape stories for me or to set me racking my brains for anything that would throw light upon the house or upon its people. ‘‘ A foreigner,’’ said the gossips of the street, ‘‘a rich woman living alone.’’ She paid her bills—oh, wonderful testimony to the perfect neighbor! She went out much, ‘There were empty champagne bottles in her garden! I laughed to myself, remembering the news old Benjamin had gathered. ‘The sweet face of the woman had looked at me often since that night? I had stood with her again in the house of my sleep. What freak of destiny, I asked, permitted me to pass by when those (S@) : eormichool