duration.  It was the ghost of the rich relative, who had been permitted to return to earth to torture his nephew into the grave.  Wherefore, under the spur of this constant reminder, John Hay, always preserving the air of heavy business-like stolidity that hid the shadow on his mind, turned investments, houses, and lands into sovereigns—–­rich, round, red, English sovereigns, each one worth twenty shillings.  Lands may become valueless, and houses fly heavenward on the wings of red flame, but till the Day of Judgment a sovereign will always be a sovereign—­that is to say, a king of pleasures.

Possessed of his sovereigns, John Hay would fain have spent them one by one on such coarse amusements as his soul loved; but he was haunted by the instant fear of Death; for the ghost of his relative stood in the hall of his house close to the hat-rack, shouting up the stairway that life was short, that there was no hope of increase of days, and that the undertakers were already roughing out his nephew’s coffin.  John Hay was generally alone in the house, and even when he had company, his friends could not hear the clamorous uncle.  The shadow inside his brain grew larger and blacker.  His fear of death was driving John Hay mad.

Then, from the deeps of his mind, where he had stowed away all his discarded information, rose to light the scientific fact of the Easterly journey.  On the next occasion that his uncle shouted up the stairway urging him to make haste and live, a shriller voice cried, ’Who goes round the world once easterly, gains one day.’

His growing diffidence and distrust of mankind made John Hay unwilling to give this precious message of hope to his friends.  They might take it up and analyse it.  He was sure it was true, but it would pain him acutely were rough hands to examine it too closely.  To him alone of all the toiling generations of mankind had the secret of immortality been vouchsafed.  It would be impious—­against all the designs of the Creator—­ to set mankind hurrying eastward.  Besides, this would crowd the steamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all things to be alone.  If he could get round the world in two months—­some one of whom he had read, he could not remember the name, had covered the passage in eighty days—­he would gain a clear day; and by steadily continuing to do it for thirty years, would gain one hundred and eighty days, or nearly the half of a year.  It would not be much, but in course of time, as civilisation advanced, and the Euphrates Valley Railway was opened, he could improve the pace.

Armed with many sovereigns, John Hay, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, set forth on his travels, two voices bearing him company from Dover as he sailed to Calais.  Fortune favoured him.  The Euphrates Valley Railway was newly opened, and he was the first man who took ticket direct from Calais to Calcutta—­thirteen days in the train.  Thirteen days in the train are not good for the nerves; but he covered the world and returned to Calais from America in twelve days over the two months, and started afresh with four and twenty hours of precious time to his credit.  Three years passed, and John Hay religiously went round this earth seeking for more time wherein to enjoy the remainder of his sovereigns.  He became known on many lines as the man who wanted to go on; when people asked him what he was and what he did, he answered—­