mange has broken out in both cats and we're afraid of its
spreading to the kennels.''

  ``But my great discovery!'' expostulated Mr. Appin;
``after all my years of research and experiment---''

  ``You can go and experiment on the short-horns at the
farm, who are under proper control,'' said Mrs. Cornett,
``or the elephants at the Zoological Gardens.  They're said
to be highly intelligent, and they have this recommendation,
that they don't come creeping about our bedrooms and under
chairs, and so forth.''

  An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the Millennium, and
then finding that it clashed unpardonably with Henley and
would have to be indefinitely postponed, could hardly have
felt more crestfallen than Cornelius Appin at the reception
of his wonderful achievement.  Public opinion, however, was
against him---in fact, had the general voice been consulted
on the subject it is probable that a strong minority vote
would have been in favour of including him in the strychnine
diet.

  Defective train arrangements and a nervous desire to see
matters brought to a finish prevented an immediate dispersal
of the party, but dinner that evening was not a social
success.  Sir Wilfrid had had rather a trying time with the
stable cat and subsequently with the coachman.  Agnes Resker
ostentatiously limited her repast to a morsel of dry toast,
which she bit as though it were a personal enemy; while
Mavis Pellington maintained a vindictive silence throughout
the meal.  Lady Blemley kept up a flow of what she hoped was
conversation, but her attention was fixed on the doorway.  A
plateful of carefully dosed fish scraps was in readiness on
the sideboard, but sweets and savoury and dessert went their
way, and no Tobermory appeared either in the dining-room or
kitchen.

  The sepulchral dinner was cheerful compared with the
subsequent vigil in the smoking-room.  Eating and drinking
had at least supplied a distraction and cloak to the
prevailing embarrassment.  Bridge was out of the question in
the general tension of nerves and tempers, and after Odo
Finsberry had given a lugubrious rendering of ``Mlisande
in the Wood'' to a frigid audience, music was tacitly
avoided.  At eleven the servants went to bed, announcing
that the small window in the pantry had been left open as
usual for Tobermory's private use.  The guests read steadily
through the current batch of magazines, and fell back
gradually on the ``Badminton Library'' and bound volumes of
Punch.  Lady Blemley made periodic visits to the pantry,
returning each time with an expression of listless
depression which forestalled questioning.

  At two o'clock Clovis broke the dominating silence.

  ``He won't turn up tonight.  He's probably in the local
newspaper office at the present moment, dictating the first
instalment of his reminiscences.  Lady What's-her-name's
book won't be in it.  It will be the event of the day.''

  Having made this contribution to the general cheerfulness,
Clovis went to bed.  At long intervals the various members
of the house-party followed his example.

  The servants taking round the early tea made a uniform
announcement in reply to a uniform question.  Tobermory had
not returned.

  Breakfast was, if anything, a more unpleasant function
than dinner had been, but before its conclusion the
situation was relieved.  Tobermory's corpse was brought in
from the shrubbery, where a gardener had just discovered it.
From the bites on his throat and the yellow fur which coated
his claws it was evident that he had fallen in unequal
combat with the big Tom from the Rectory.

  By midday most of the guests had quitted the Towers, and
after lunch Lady Blemley had sufficiently recovered her
spirits to write an extremely nasty letter to the Rectory
about the loss of her valuable pet.

  Tobermory had been Appin's one successful pupil, and he
was destined to have no successor.  A few weeks later an
elephant in the Dresden Zoological Garden, which had shown
no previous signs of irritability, broke loose and killed an
Englishman who had apparently been teasing it.  The victim's
name was variously reported in the papers as Oppin and
Eppelin, but his front name was faithfully rendered
Cornelius.

  ``If he was trying German irregular verbs on the poor
beast,'' said Clovis, ``he deserved all he got.''

		  MRS. PACKLETIDE'S TIGER

  It was Mrs. Packletide's pleasure and intention that she should
shoot a tiger.  Not that the lust to kill had suddenly descended on
her, or that she felt that she would leave India safer and more
wholesome than she had found it, with one fraction less of wild