Perkins, the Fakeer. Edward Sims van Zile

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      Her ill-timed jocosity struck me as ghastly.

      "Caroline, dear," I began, "we must beware of recriminations. 'It is a condition, not a theory, that confronts us,'" I quoted, mournfully. "If we should fall out, you and I–"

      "If we only could!" sighed Caroline.

      "Could what?" I cried, in shrill falsetto.

      "Fall out, Reginald," she answered, grimly. "Can't you think of something else to try? Really, it's too absurd! What is the matter with us, Reggie? Are we dreaming?"

      I listened, intently. The servants were astir down-stairs, and through the windows came the clatter of early vehicles and the thin voice of a newsboy crying at eight o'clock the ten o'clock "extra" of a yellow journal. There was nothing in our environment to suggest the supernatural or to explain a mystery that deepened as the moments passed. The external world was unchanged, and–startling thought!–Caroline and I must confront it presently under conditions that were, so far as I knew, unprecedented in the history of the race.

      "That's no dream!" I exclaimed, terror-stricken. My wife's maid had rapped, as usual at the outer door of our apartments. "Good God, Caroline, what shall we do?"

      "Tell her I don't want her this morning, Reginald! Send her away, will you? She mustn't see me–yet."

      "But my–your–this hair, Caroline? How'll I get it up without Suzanne's help?"

      "I'll do it for you," answered Caroline, in a voice that sounded like a despairing moan.

      "Look at those hands–my hands, Caroline! You can't dress hair with them. Take my word for that."

      Suzanne rapped again, thinking, doubtless, that we were still asleep.

      "I'll be there directly, Suzanne," cried Caroline, in my voice.

      We turned cold with consternation. What would Suzanne think of this? My reputation in my own household had been jeopardized on the instant.

      "Caroline! Caroline! You must pull yourself together!" I whispered. "Have courage, and do keep your wits about you! Act like a man, will you? Keep quiet, now. I'll speak to Suzanne."

      With a courage begotten by desperation, I sat erect. Fear and hope had been at war within me as, for the first time since I had awakened, I changed my posture. I had dreaded the uncanny sensation that would spring from further proof that I was really imprisoned in my wife's body. But I had clung to a shred of hope. It might be that Caroline and I in motion would find the psychical readjustment that had been denied to us in repose. I was instantly undeceived. As I sat up in bed, Caroline's luxuriant dark tresses fell over my shoulders and I looked down at a lock of hair that lay black against my tapering white fingers. A wave of physical well-being swept over me, and, despite the horror of my situation, my heart beat with a great joy in life. The blood came into my well-rounded cheeks, as I recalled Caroline's recent request for a cocktail. What a shame it was that a big, healthy man should want a stimulant early in the day!

      "Suzanne!" I cried. "Suzanne, are you still there?"

      "Oui, madame," came the maid's voice, a note echoing through it that I did not like.

      "I shall not want you for fifteen minutes, Suzanne," I said. "Come back in a quarter of an hour." I felt a cold chill creeping over me, and Caroline's sweet voice trembled slightly. "And may the devil fly away with you, Suzanne!" I muttered, as I fell back against the pillows.

      "We've had our sentence suspended for fifteen minutes, Caroline," I said, presently. "But how the deuce am I going to get through my toilet? My French is not like yours, my dear, and you never speak English to Suzanne. It's actually immoral, Caroline, the way I get my genders mixed up in French."

      "Oh, don't say that, Reginald!" exclaimed my wife, in a horrified basso.

      "Say what, Caroline?" I asked, petulantly.

      "That about mixing genders being immoral, Reggie," she fairly moaned. "I'm not immoral, even if–if–if I have got your gender, Reginald. I didn't want it," she added, sternly, "and I can't be held responsible if I am masculine or neuter or intransitive. My advice to you, Reginald, is not to say much to Suzanne in any language."

      I could not refrain from a silvery chuckle, the sound of which changed my mood instantly.

      "How often I've said that to you, Caroline!" I remarked, most unkindly.

      "I don't gossip with Suzanne any more than you do with your man," growled Caroline, in a tone that hurt me deeply.

      My man! Great Lucifer, I had almost forgotten his existence. He would be in my dressing-room presently to trim my beard and make of himself a nuisance in various ways. Jenkins had his good points as a valet, but he was too talkative at times and always inquisitive. I could have murdered Suzanne and Jenkins at that moment with good appetite.

      "Caroline," I said, gloomily, "Fate has ordained that you and I, for some reason that is not apparent, must make immediate choice between two courses of action. We can commit suicide–there's a revolver in the room. Or we may face the ordeal bravely, helping each other, as the day passes, to conceal from the world our strange affliction. I have no doubt that while we sleep to-night the–ah–psychical mistake that has been made will be rectified."

      My voice faltered as I uttered the last sentence. Neither my experience nor reading had furnished me with data upon which I could safely base so optimistic a conclusion.

      "I–I don't want to die, Reggie," muttered Caroline, with a gesture of protest.

      "The club was rather quiet last night," I remarked, musingly; but my wife did not catch the significance of the words. "Well, if we're to brace up and stand the racket, Caroline, we must begin at once. You must give me a few pointers about Suzanne. I'll reciprocate of course, and you'll have no trouble in bluffing Jenkins to a standstill. There he is now! Call out to him, my dear. Don't be afraid of using–ah–my voice. Tell him you are coming to him at once." Unbroken silence ensued.

      "Now, Caroline, be a man–that's a good girl! Tell him you'll be out in five minutes."

      My wife's stalwart figure was shaking with nervousness.

      "Oh–ah–oh, Jenkins," she roared, presently. "Jenkins, go away. I don't want you this morning. Go away! go away! Do you hear me? Go away!"

      "Yes, sir," came Jenkins's voice to us, amazement and flunkeyism mingled therein in equal parts. "Yes, sir. I'm going at once, sir."

      "Now you have done it, Caroline!" I cried, in a high treble of anger. "Great Scott! how that man will talk down-stairs!"

      For a moment the sun-lighted room whirled before my eyes like a golden merry-go-round, and I lay there, limp and helpless, awaiting in misery Suzanne's imminent return.

      CHAPTER II.

      A WEIRD TOILETTE

      My spirit wrestles in anguish

      With fancies that will not depart;

      A ghost who borrowed my semblance

      Has hid in the depth of my heart.

--Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen.

      "Madame seems to be in very low spirits this morning," Suzanne had the audacity to remark to me as she deftly manipulated my wife's dark, luxuriant hair, to СКАЧАТЬ