"We might, of course, bury him in the garden," the Duke went on, "thus enriching the soil; we might wait for a foggy night, take him out and lose him——" "Monty! I’ve got it!" The inspiration had come to Tuppy with extraordinary suddenness. "Pay him out." "What?" "Pay the rent," said Tuppy solemnly; "it’s unusual in cases like this, an’ it’s a bad precedent: but as a solution it’s got points you could hang your hat on." II It is a fault of some authors, that they persistently refuse to introduce characters into their stories, unless those characters in the course of the narrative, perform an act or acts, of such transcendent importance as to make the story impossible without their presence. Accordingly we are familiar with the faithful servant who meanders through 300 pages with little to say for himself save "Dinner is served, your Grace," and "His lordship has not yet returned from ’unting, m’lady;" who is deliciously obscure until the end of the book, when he gives his life for the children, or produces the missing will. We know of governesses, pretty and otherwise, who are the merest shadows for twenty chapters, but enter into their kingdom in the twenty-first, when they accuse the Earl of unblemished character of being the father of the beggar boy. I could have wished that Olejoe might have passed from these pages naturally, and without fuss, just as people pass from the real pages of life, without ostentation, noiselessly ignoring the rules of the theatre, which demand that no character shall leave the stage without an effective "line" to take them "off," such as "We meet to-morrow!" or "Look to it, Sir George—look to it!" or in the cases of more important figures, a long and heroic peroration. The rules of the theatre do not insist upon heroics for a part like Olejoe’s. I think something like this would have fulfilled all requirements— Olejoe (_one foot on doorstep, bundle slung over shoulder_): Farewell, my lord. Farewell, my noble Duke: the elms shall bud To greeny leafness, and the summer sun Shall gild the cupula of this great house. I pass to winter, to an endless night, Bereft of your bright presence: for this gold, This token of your grace, my charged heart Puts lock upon my tongue (_business with handkerchief_). Farewell! There were, as it happened, certain lines to be said by Olejoe in the natural course of events, for the broker’s man shares with the waiter, the boots, the chambermaid, and the hotel porter the same characteristic and absolute repugnance to effacement. The bailiff’s receipt lay on the table, and Olejoe in a ducal coat, a lordly pair of trousers and a cowboy hat, the united contributions of the household, took the handsome tip the Duke had delicately slipped into his hand, and with tearful eyes expressed his gratitude.