And as soon as my eyes could see at all in the night I saw a man in a huge hat looped up in front, wearing a sword in a scabbard shabby and huge, and looking blacker than the darkness, riding on a lean horse slowly up to the inn.  Whether his were the emeralds, or who he was, or why he rode a lame horse on such a night, I did not stop to discover, but went at once from the inn as he strode in his great black riding coat up to the door.

And that was the last that was ever seen of the wayfarer; the blacksmith, the carpenter or the postman’s son.

THE OLD BROWN COAT

My friend, Mr. Douglas Ainslie, tells me that Sir James Barrie once told him this story.  The story, or rather the fragment, was as follows.

A man strolling into an auction somewhere abroad, I think it must have been France, for they bid in francs, found they were selling old clothes.  And following some idle whim he soon found himself bidding for an old coat.  A man bid against him, he bid against the man.  Up and up went the price till the old coat was knocked down to him for twenty pounds.  As he went away with the coat he saw the other bidder looking at him with an expression of fury.

That’s as far as the story goes.  But how, Mr. Ainslie asked me, did the matter develop, and why that furious look?  I at once made enquiries at a reliable source and have ascertained that the man’s name was Peters, who thus oddly purchased a coat, and that he took it to the Rue de Rivoli, to a hotel where he lodged, from the little low, dark auction room by the Seine in which he concluded the bargain.  There he examined it, off and on, all day and much of the next morning, a light brown overcoat with tails, without discovering any excuse, far less a reason, for having spent twenty pounds on so worn a thing.  And late next morning to his sitting room looking out on the Gardens of the Tuileries the man with the furious look was ushered in.

Grim he stood, silent and angry, till the guiding waiter went.  Not till then did he speak, and his words came clear and brief, welling up from deep emotions.

“How did you dare to bid against me?”

His name was Santiago.  And for many moments Peters found no excuse to offer, no apology, nothing in extenuation.  Lamely at last, weakly, knowing his argument to be of no avail, he muttered something to the intent that Mr. Santiago could have outbid him.

“No,” said the stranger.  “We don’t want all the town in this.  This is a matter between you and me.”  He paused, then added in his fierce, curt way:  “A thousand pounds, no more.”

Almost dumbly Peters accepted the offer and, pocketing the thousand pounds that was paid him, and apologizing for the inconvenience he had unwittingly caused, tried to show the stranger out.  But Santiago strode swiftly on before him, taking the coat, and was gone.