than a sheet of paper, is not usually found to spring unbidden in the

mind of the amateur; nor is the key of seven sharps a place of much

repose to the untried. He cast away that sheet. 'It will help to build

up the character of Jimson,' Gideon remarked, and again waited on

the muse, in various keys and on divers sheets of paper, but all with

results so inconsiderable that he stood aghast. 'It's very odd,' thought

he. 'I seem to have less fancy than I thought, or this is an off-day

with me; yet Jimson must leave something.' And again he bent himself to

the task.

Presently the penetrating chill of the houseboat began to attack the

very seat of life. He desisted from his unremunerative trial, and, to

the audible annoyance of the rats, walked briskly up and down the cabin.

Still he was cold. 'This is all nonsense,' said he. 'I don't care about

the risk, but I will not catch a catarrh. I must get out of this den.'

He stepped on deck, and passing to the bow of his embarkation, looked

for the first time up the river. He started. Only a few hundred yards

above another houseboat lay moored among the willows. It was very

spick-and-span, an elegant canoe hung at the stern, the windows were

concealed by snowy curtains, a flag floated from a staff. The more

Gideon looked at it, the more there mingled with his disgust a sense

of impotent surprise. It was very like his uncle's houseboat; it was

exceedingly like--it was identical. But for two circumstances, he

could have sworn it was the same. The first, that his uncle had gone to

Maidenhead, might be explained away by that flightiness of purpose which

179

The Wrong Box