“My only purpose to-night is to express that unanimity. There may have been times when I differed from Dr. Hunter; but I am glad to say that all that is passed, and I have now nothing but the most friendly feelings towards him, for reasons which I will not mention, though I have plenty to say. In token of this reconciliation I here solemnly cast from me this torch. As that firebrand is quenched in the cool crystal waters of that sacred stream, so shall all such feuds perish in the healing pool of universal peace.” Before anybody knew what he was doing, he had whirled his flambeau in a flaming wheel round his head and sent it flying like a meteor out into the dim eddies of the river. The next moment a short, sharp cry was uttered, and every face in that crowd was staring at the river. All the faces were visibly staring, for they were all lit up as by a ghastly firelight by a wide wan unnatural flame that leapt up from the very surface of the stream; a flame that the crowd watched as it might have watched a comet. “There,” cried Owen Hood, turning suddenly on the girl and seizing her arm, as if demanding congratulations. “So much for old Crane’s prophecy!” “Who in the world is Old Crane?” she asked, “and what did he prophesy? Is he something like Old Moore?” “Only an old friend,” said Hood hastily, “only an old friend of mine. It’s what he said that’s so important. He didn’t like my moping about with books and a fishing-rod, and he said, standing on that very island, ‘You may know a lot; but I don’t think you’ll ever set the Thames on fire. I’ll eat my hat if you do.’” But the story of how old Crane ate his hat is one upon which some readers at least can now look back as on labour and suffering bravely endured. And if it be possible for any of them to desire to know any more either about Mr. Crane or Mr. Hood, then must they gird themselves for the ordeal of reading the story of The Unobtrusive Traffic of Captain Pierce, and their trials are for a time deferred. III THE UNOBTRUSIVE TRAFFIC OF CAPTAIN PIERCE III THE UNOBTRUSIVE TRAFFIC OF CAPTAIN PIERCE