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Accelerated Reliability and Durability Testing Technology
1st Edition Lev M. Klyatis Digital Instant Download
Author(s): LevM. Klyatis
ISBN(s): 9780470454657, 0470454652
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 3.18 MB
Year: 2012
Language: english

ACCELERATED RELIABILITY
AND DURABILITY
TESTING TECHNOLOGY

WILEY SERIES IN SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND
MANAGEMENT
Andrew P. Sage, Editor
A complete list of the titles in this series appears at the end of this volume.

ACCELERATED RELIABILITY
AND DURABILITY
TESTING TECHNOLOGY
LEV M. KLYATIS
Professor Emeritus
Habilitated Dr.-Ing., Dr. of Technical Sciences, Ph.D.
A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., PUBLICATION

Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
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visit our web site at www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Klyatis, Lev M.
Accelerated reliability and durability testing technology / Lev M. Klyatis.
p. cm. – (Wiley series in systems engineering and management)
ISBN 978-0-470-45465-7 (cloth)
1. Reliability (Engineering) 2. Accelerated life testing. I. Title.
TS173.K63 2009
620'.00452–dc22
2009017252
Printed in Singapore.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents
Preface xi
About the Author xvii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The Purpose of Accelerated Testing (AT) 1
1.2 The Current Situation in AT 2
1.3 Financial Assessment of the Risks Involved in Creating
a Testing Program 23
1.4 Common Principles of ART and ADT 26
1.5 The Level of Usefulness of ART and ADT 32
Exercises 40
2 Accelerated Reliability Testing as a Component of an
Interdisciplinary System of Systems Approach 43
2.1 Current Practice in Reliability, Maintainability,
and Quality 43
2.2 A Description of the Product/Process Reliability and Durability
as the Components of the Interdisciplinary SoS Approach 48
2.3 The Collection and Analysis of Failure and Usage
Data from the Field 51
2.4 Field Input Inﬂuences 57
2.5 Safety Problems as a Component of the Field Situation 58
2.6 Human Factors as a Component of the Field Situation 60
2.7 The Interconnection of Quality and Reliability 67
vii

viii CONTENTS
2.8 The Strategy to Integrate Quality with Reliability 69
2.9 The Place of ART/ADT in High Quality, Reliability,
Maintainability, and Durability 75
Exercises 77
3 The Basic Concepts of Accelerated Reliability
and Durability Testing 81
3.1 Developing an Accurate Simulation of the Field Situation
as the Basic Component of Successful Accelerated Reliability
Testing (ART) and Accelerated Durability Testing (ADT) 81
3.2 Conceptual Methodology for the Substantiation of a
Representative Region for an Accurate Simulation of
the Field Conditions 91
3.3 Basic Procedures of ART and ADT 97
3.4 ART and LCC 115
Exercises 122
4 Accelerated Reliability and Durability Testing Methodology 125
4.1 Analysis of the Current Situation 125
4.2 Philosophy of ART/ADT 131
4.3 ART/ADT Methodology as a Combination of
Different Types of Testing 134
4.4 Accelerated Multiple Environmental Testing 141
4.5 Accelerated Corrosion Testing 149
4.6 Technology of Advanced Vibration Testing 185
4.7 Field Reliability Testing 191
4.8 Trends in the Development of ART/ADT Technology 191
Exercises 195
5 Equipment for Accelerated Reliability (Durability)
Testing Technology 199
5.1 Analysis of the Current Situation with Equipment
for Accelerated Reliability (Durability) Testing 199
5.2 Combined Equipment for ART/ADT as a Combination
(Integration) of Equipment for Different Types of Testing 207
5.3 Consideration of Components for ART/ADT and Combined
(Integrated) Equipment Testing 209
5.4 Equipment for Mechanical Testing 231
5.5 Equipment for Multi-environmental Testing
and Its Components 264

CONTENTS ix
5.6 Equipment for Electrical Testing 315
Exercises 316
6 Accelerated Reliability and Durability Testing as a Source of Initial
Information for Accurate Quality, Reliability, Maintainability, and
Durability Prediction and Accelerated Product Development 321
6.1 About Accurate Prediction of Quality, Reliability,
Durability and Maintainability 321
6.2 The Strategy for Accurate Prediction of Reliability, Durability,
Maintainability and Quality, and Accelerated Product
Development 323
6.3 The Role of ART and ADT in the Accurate Prediction
and Accelerated Development of Quality, Reliability,
Maintainability, and Durability 349
Exercises 350
7 The Financial and Design Advantages of Using Accelerated
Reliability/Durability Testing 353
Exercises 357
8 Accelerated Reliability Testing Standardization 359
8.1 Overview and Analysis 359
8.2 IEC Standards 362
8.3 ISO Standards 367
8.4 Military Reliability Testing Standards and
Appropriate Documents 367
8.5 Standardization in Reliability (Durability) Testing
by Societies 370
Conclusions 373
Common Conclusions 373
Speciﬁc Conclusions 373
Glossary of Terms and Deﬁnitions 375
References 393
Index 407

xi
Preface
In 2009–2010, Toyota experienced an increase in global recalls jumping to
8.5 million cars and trucks [1]. Similar situations have occurred and could
happen again to other automakers as well as to companies in other industries.
Toyota can have similar problems in the future as well.The basic reason behind
many recalls and complaints, as well as higher cost and time for maintenance
and life cycle cost than was predicted during design and manufacturing is the
inaccurate prediction of the product’s reliability, durability, and quality during
design and manufacturing. Predictions may be inaccurate due to the lack of
proper accelerated reliability testing (ART) and accelerated durability testing
(ADT) as a source of initial information for the prediction.
The focus of this book is to show multiple applications of the technology
(methodology and equipment) that provide physically ART and ADT of an
actual product in a way that represents the real world’s many product influenc-
ing interactions.
Integrated global solutions for many engineering problems in quality, safety,
human factors, reliability, maintainability, durability, and serviceability were
not available in the past. One of the basic reasons for this design deficiency
was the inability to solve a fundamentally important problem—accelerated
reliability (durability) testing. ART and ADT provide an integrated solution
that will positively influence product development time, cost, quality, design,
and effective product/process. The context for this treatise is an industrial
product design and development. This approach applies to the development
of a large number of products and processes such as, for example, in the con-
sumer goods, industrial, producer, medical, banking, pharmaceutical, teaching,
and military factors.
The weakness of prior accelerated testing approaches such as vibration
testing, corrosion testing, step-stress testing, thermoshock testing, highly accel-

xii PREFACE
erated life testing (HALT), highly accelerated stress screening (HASS), accel-
erated aging, mechanical crack propagation and growth, and environmental
stress screening (ESS) was the result of inappropriately using only a few of
the influencing factors and using these factors in isolation. Such testing
improved the design in a one-dimensional way but failed to provide the
needed global optimum solution formed by combining the many complex
factors in a systematically integrated approach. These types of individually
conducted tests do not provide sufficient information for the accurate predic-
tion of the interval product/process degradation and failures. The complex
interaction of these factors with the multitude of real-world factors is not
considered.
Hence, the results are potentially (and usually) misleading. Such suboptimal
solutions cannot accurately account for the global impact of complicated
interactions that result in delays in development, time to market, and in
increased costs related to
• Design time and result
• Customer satisfaction and expense
• Maintenance frequency, cost, and access
• Warranty costs and recalls
• Degradation of product/process over time
• Failures during time intervals and warranty periods
• Quality requirements and indices
• Product safety
• Human factors
Many people seek to artificially increase the value of limited testing by
including the word“durability”in the title (e.g.,“Vibration DurabilityTesting”).
Vibration testing is not sufficient for the evaluation or prediction of product
durability. Vibration testing is only one of many components of mechanical
testing as a part of complicated durability testing. Vibration testing alone is
not sufficient for accelerated development predictions for reliability, maintain-
ability, and durability improvement or for solving many other related
problems.
ART or ADT based on a combination of many types of accelerated tests
(field, laboratory, multi-environment, mechanical, electrical, etc.) integrated
with safety and human factors helps to solve the identified problems.ART and
ADT both use an accurate simulation of a field environment. Chapter 1
describes this phenomenon.
What is technology? Technology is often a generic term to encompass all
the technologies people develop and use in their lives. The United Nations
Education, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines technology
as “. . . the know-how and creative processes that may assist people to utilize
tools, resources and systems to solve problems and to enhance control over

PREFACE xiii
the natural and made environment in an endeavor to improve the human
conditions” [2].Thus, technology involves the purposeful application of knowl-
edge, creativity, experience, insight, and resources to create processes and
products that meet human needs or desires. The needs and wants of people in
particular communities coupled with their creativity determine the type of
technology that is developed and how it is applied.
The simple definition of ART and ADT technology is a “complex” com-
posed of specific testing methodologies, equipment, and usage that influence
accurate prediction and successful accelerated development of product quality,
reliability, durability, maintainability, availability, and supportability.
Each type of reliability and durability laboratory testing conducted as a
component of ART or ADT consists of many subcomponents. The simulation
of multiple inputs individually and simultaneously influences the result. For
example, multi-environmental testing consists of a combination of tempera-
ture, humidity, chemical pollution, dust pollution, a complex of ultraviolet,
infrared, and visible parts of the light spectrum, air pressure, and other influ-
encing factors.
This is the first book on ART and ADT that intends to acquaint the reader
with the evolving methodology and equipment necessary to conduct true ART
and ADT.To answer the question “How?” the author uses more than 30 years
of experience in this field, especially in the area of ART and ADT, as well as
drawing from the world’s experience in this area.
This work covers new ideas and technologies for accurate ART and ADT
that enhance the high correlation between testing and field data. This impor-
tant testing process is continuously developing and expanding. In the real
world, most of the significant factors for design and development are intercon-
nected. Simulation, testing, quality, reliability, maintainability, human–system
interaction, safety, and many other factors are interconnected and collectively
influence each other.This is also true for the interacting influences of tempera-
ture, humidity, air pollution, light exposure, road conditions, input voltage, and
many other parameters.
If one ignores these interactions, then one cannot accurately represent the
real-world situation in a simulation. Consequently, testing based on a simula-
tion without considering real-world interactions cannot give sufficient infor-
mation for the accurate prediction of all the quality parameters of interest.
This book provides strategies to eliminate these negative aspects and to suf-
ficiently describe ART and ADT.
ART and ADT is an important component of a more complicated problem:
accurate prediction of product quality, reliability, durability, and maintainabil-
ity using accelerated tests. This unique approach shows that ART and ADT
represent a significant tool for the integration of multiple interactions gener-
ated by other test parameters. This methodology uses a system of systems
approach and shows how to use ART and ADT for estimating reliability
parameters and related maintainability, durability, and quality parameters.
One uses it to get an accurate prediction of optimal maintainability, durability,

xiv PREFACE
and a desired level of quality during a given time (warranty period, service
life). This approach reduces customer complaints, product recalls, life cycle
costs, and “time to market,” while facilitating the solution of related
problems.
Most publications concentrate on the theoretical aspects of data analysis
(including test data), test plans, parameter estimation, and statistics in the area
of accelerated testing.The description of the test equipment, test protocol, and
its application is seldom available.One can rarely find any information describ-
ing the process and equipment required to conduct ART and ADT.
Engineers and managers particularly need to know how to correctly perform
ART and ADT. The specific advantage this book provides is an explanation
of the technology, technique, and equipment sufficient to enable engineers and
managers and other service professionals to successfully conduct practical
ART and ADT. The book provides the direction to rapidly find causes (with
examples) for the degradation and failures in products and processes and to
quickly eliminate or mitigate these causes or their effects.This approach dem-
onstrates how to accelerate the processes to provide an accurate prediction
during the development of the product’s quality, reliability, durability, and
maintainability for a given warranty period and service life.
Each individual product needs a specific test plan and testing technique, but
the concepts for solving these problems are universal.Therefore, this book will
be useful for different types of products in various industries and applications
that work on land, at sea, in the air, and in space.
ART/ADT need an initial capital investment in equipment and high-level
professionals to manage and conduct it. Only a limited number of industrial
companies have appropriate guidance for this type of testing.Many CEOs who
make decisions about testing investments do not sufficiently understand that
an investment in ART/ADT will typically result in a 10-fold increase in profits.
It reduces complaints and recalls, increases reliability, durability, and maintain-
ability, and decreases total life cycle costs. Accelerated reliability (durability)
testing is more complicated than many other types of accelerated tests cur-
rently in use.
It was not until the late 1950s that professionals began to understand that
the myriad interactions among different influences on the product/process
could result in overlooking a significant degradation failure mechanism.
Originally, testing occurred in series by using one input influence at a time, for
example, temperature alone. Then adding another, humidity, for example, was
tested. When it became clear that temperature and humidity did not account
for all of the failures, then another influence, perhaps vibration, was tested.
This serial process continued with the addition of other influencing parameters
as necessary to explain the unexpected failures. Although the design was
improved to ensure the equipment would be reliable in each individual envi-
ronment, unexpected failures occurred when the equipment was finally tested
in a real-world environment. No assessment had been made of the collective
interactions of the many input influences. Eventually, engineers realized that

PREFACE xv
the synergistic effects of the interaction of different environmental factors
caused the degradation and failures.
A new approach to testing, where the product simultaneously experiences
different input influences, is combined environmental reliability testing
(CERT) [3]. CERT required new testing facilities and testing equipment. For
example, vibration tables and ovens were combined to create what were
humorously referred to as “shake ’n bake” chambers [4]. In fact, such a multi-
environmental test only partly reflects the field input influences. Mechanical
testing, electrical testing, and other types of testing also exist. The basis for
ART and ADT is the simultaneous simulation of all field influences, integrated
with safety and human factors, on the product or process.
Each laboratory research study applies different field simulations and test-
ings.This book may improve the quality of this work by enabling professionals
to execute research on a higher level.
ART is identical in many aspects to ADT. Therefore, many refer to “ART”
as “ADT.” Repetition of the term “simultaneous combination” reflects the
basic essence of ART and ADT.
The book is for industrial engineers, test engineers, reliability engineers, and
managers. It is also for personnel in the service area, maintenance area, engi-
neering researchers, teachers, and students who are involved in quality, reli-
ability, durability, maintainability, simulation, and testing.The author wishes to
express his thanks to Y.M. Abdulgalimov, J.M. Shehtman, E.L. Klyatis, V.A.
Ivnitsky, and posthumously to D. Lander for help provided in various stages
of this project.
Lev M. Klyatis

xvii
About the Author
Dr. Lev Klyatis is Senior Consultant at SoHaR, Inc. and a member of the
Board of Directors for the International Association of Arts and Sciences in
New York. His scientiﬁc/technical expertise is in reliability, durability, and
maintainability. He created new approaches for accelerated solution of reli-
ability/durability/maintainability problems, through innovation in the areas of
accurate physical simulation of ﬁeld conditions, accelerated reliability/durabil-
ity testing, and accurate prediction of quality/reliability/durability/maintain-
ability. He developed a methodology of complaints and recalls reducing. He
holds three doctoral degrees: a Ph.D. in Engineering Technology, a high-level
East European doctoral degree (Sc.D.) in Engineering Technology, and a high-
level West European doctoral degree in Engineering (Habilitated Dr.-Ing.).
He was named a full life professor by the USSR’s Highest Examination
Board in 1991 and a full professor at Moscow University of Agricultural
Engineers in 1990–1992.He came to the United States in 1993.He is the author
of over 250 publications, including eight books. His most recent work is
Accelerated Quality and Reliability Solutions (2006). He holds more than 30
patents in different countries. He is a seminar instructor for the ASQ seminar
AcceleratedTesting of Products.He is a frequent speaker on accurate simulation

xviii ABOUT THE AUTHOR
of ﬁeld conditions, accelerated testing, and accurate prediction of quality, reli-
ability, durability, and maintainability at national conferences in the United
States as well as international conferences, congresses, and symposiums.
Dr. Klyatis has worked in the automotive, farm machinery, and aerospace
industries, among others. He was a consultant for Ford, DaimlerChrysler,
Thermo King, Black & Dekker, NASA Research Centers, and Karl Schenck
(Germany), as well as other industries.
Dr. Klyatis served on the U.S.–USSR Trade and Economic Council, the
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and the International
Electrotechnical Commission as an expert of the United States and an expert
of the ISO/IEC Joint Study Group in Safety Aspects of Risk Assessment. He
was the research leader and chairman of the state enterprise TESTMASH,
and the principal engineer of a governmental test center. He is presently a
consultant of ACDI VOCA, a U.S. agency, and a member of the World Quality
Council, the Elmer A. Sperry Board of Award, the SAE G-11 Executive and
Reliability Committees, the Quality and Robust Design Committee of SAE,
and the Governing Board of the SAE International Metropolitan Section.

1
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 THE PURPOSE OF ACCELERATED TESTING (AT)
In an AT, one accelerates the deterioration of the test subject beyond what is
expected in an actual normal service environment. AT began many years ago
with the development of the necessary methodology and equipment.
Development continues into the future. As the knowledge about life and the
laws of nature evolves, the requirements for products and technologies have
also increased in complexity.Thus, the requirements for AT have and continue
to increase in scope. Often,AT methods and equipment that were satisfactory
in the past are no longer satisfactory today.Those that are good today will not
satisfy the requirements of producers and users in the future. This encourages
research and development for AT. This process, reﬂected in the literature,
encourages and directs the research and advancement of test disciplines.
Unfortunately, in real life, people who perform AT for industry and other
organizations usually do not have the time, incentive, or the opportunity to
write books. Authors of AT books unfortunately often know their subject
primarily in theory rather than from an actual application of AT.The situation
is not better if an author includes such terms as “practical,” “practice,” or
“practitioner’s guide” in the title of the publication. As a result, most books
on AT do not demonstrate how to conduct testing or identify what type of
testing facility and equipment is appropriate, and they also neglect to identify
the beneﬁts of one method over another. Publications usually fail to show
the long-term advantages and savings accruing from an investment in more
Accelerated Reliability and Durability Testing Technology, First Edition. Lev M. Klyatis.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

2 INTRODUCTION
expensive and advanced testing equipment to increase product quality, reli-
ability, durability, and maintainability while reducing the development time
and decreasing a product’s time to market. How can one accomplish this? One
must provide a combination of practical and theoretical aspects for guidance
and use.
The basic purpose of AT is to obtain initial information for issues of quality,
reliability, maintainability, supportability, and availability. It is not the final
goal. It is accomplished through prediction using the information provided by
AT under laboratory (artificial) conditions.The most effective AT of a product
design needs to occur under natural (field) conditions. AT design and the
selection of appropriate testing parameters, equipment, and facilities for each
method or type of equipment to be tested must be coordinated to provide the
test inputs and results that are most beneficial for the quality, reliability, or
maintainability problems that the test identifies. An AT design is very impor-
tant in determining how accurate the decision process is in selecting the
method and type of equipment to use.
Quality, reliability, durability, and maintainability are factors that are not
separable. They are interconnected, have complex interactions, and mutually
influence each other. This complex represents the parameters and processes
needed to conductAT and includes simulation,testing,quality,reliability devel-
opment, maintainability, accurate prediction, life cycle costs, field reliability,
quality in use,and other project-relevant parameters and processes.AT is a com-
ponent of a complex supporting the design,manufacturing,and usage processes,
and its benefits depend on how one configures the complex for optimization.
If industrial companies would properly apply this optimization process,then
they would choose more carefully among the many popular current test
methods and types of equipment such as highly accelerated life testing (HALT),
highly accelerated stress screening (HASS), accelerated aging (AA), and
others to use them for the accurate prediction of reliability, durability, main-
tainability, supportability, and availability. It is verifiable that buying simple
and inexpensive methods and equipment for testing becomes more expensive
over a product’s life. It is also true for a simulation as a component of an AT,
evaluation, and prediction. A basic premise of this book is that the whole
complex needs to be well-thought-out and approached with a globally inte-
grated optimization process.
1.2 THE CURRENT SITUATION IN AT
The following presents three basic approaches for the practical use of AT as
shown in Figure 1.1.
1.2.1 The First Approach
The first approach is special field testing with more intensive usage than under
a normal use. For example, a car is usually in use for no more than 5–6 h/day.

THE CURRENT SITUATION IN AT 3
If one uses this car 18–20 or more hours per day, this represents true AT and
provides enhanced durability research of this car’s parameters of interest.This
is a shorter nonoperating interval than normal (4–6 hours instead of the
normal 18–20 hours).The results of this type of test are more accelerated than
they would be under normal field conditions.
This type of AT is popular with such world-class known companies as
Toyota and Honda; they call it “accelerated reliability testing” (ART). For
example, in the report of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), INL/EXT
06-01262 [5], it was stated that
A total of four Honda Civic hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) have entered fleet
and accelerated reliability testing since May 2002 in two fleets in Arizona. Two
of the vehicles were driven 25,000 miles each (fleet testing), and the other two
were driven approximately 160,000 miles each (accelerated reliability testing).
One HEV reached 161,000 miles in February 2005, and the other 164,000 miles
in April 2005. These two vehicles will have their fuel efficiencies retested on
dynamometers (with and without air conditioning), and their batteries will be
capacity tested. Fact sheets and maintenance logs for these vehicles give detailed
information, such as miles driven, fuel economy, operations and maintenance
requirements, operating costs, life-cycle costs, and any unique driving issues
Another example is cited by Frankfort et al. [6] in the Final Report of the Field
Operations Program Toyota RAV4 (NiMH) Accelerated Reliability Testing.
This field testing took place from June 1998 to June 30, 1999 corresponding to
the Field Operation Program established by the U.S. DOE to implement elec-
tric vehicle activities dictated by the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research,
Development, and Demonstration Act of 1976. The program’s goals included
evaluating electric vehicles in real-world applications and environments,
advancing electric vehicle technologies, developing the infrastructure ele-
ments necessary to support significant electric vehicle use, and increasing the
Figure 1.1. The basic directions of accelerated testing.
Three basic directions of accelerated
testing
1. Field testing of
the actual test
subject with a more
intensive use than
under normal
conditions
2. Laboratory or
specific field (proving
grounds, etc.) testing
of the actual test
subject on the basis of
physical simulation of
field input influences
3. Laboratory
testing with
computer
(software)
simulation of test
subject and field
input influences

4 INTRODUCTION
awareness and acceptance of electric vehicles. The program procedures
included specific requirements for the operation, maintenance, and ownership
of electric vehicles in addition to a guide to conduct an accelerated reliability
test. Personnel of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory (INEEL) managed the Field Operation Program. The following
appeared in the final report:
One of the field evaluation tasks of the Program is the accelerated reliability
testing of commercially available electric vehicles. These vehicles are operated
with the goal of driving each test vehicle 25,000 miles within 1 year. Since
the normal fleet vehicle is only driven approximately 6,000 miles per year, accel-
erated reliability testing allows an accelerated life-cycle analysis of vehicles.
Driving is done on public roads in a random manner that simulates normal
operation.
This report summarizes the ART of three nickel metal hydride (NiMH)
equipped Toyota RAV4 electric vehicles by the Field Operation Program and
its testing partner, Southern California Edison (SCE).The three vehicles were
assigned to SCE’s Electric Vehicle Technical Center located in Pomona,
California. The report adds “. . . To accumulate 25,000 miles within 1 year of
testing, SCE assigned the vehicle to employees with long commutes that lived
within the vehicles’ maximum range. Occasionally, the normal drivers did not
use their vehicles because of vacation or business travel. In that case, SCE
attempted to find other personnel to continue the test.”
A profile of the vehicle’s users from Frankfort et al. is presented in Table
1.1.This is a useful work in many areas, but practice shows that this type of
field testing is not applicable for an accurate reliability, durability, and main-
tainability prediction, by this book’s definition and methodology, for several
reasons:
1. Many years of field testing for several specimens are necessary to gather
initial information for an accurate quality, reliability, and maintainability
prediction during a given period.This book proposes a methodology and
equipment that can accomplish this at a much faster pace and at a lower
cost.
TABLE 1.1 Profile of Vehicle Users [2]
Vehicle Number 1 2 3
Normal round-trip commute (miles) 60 120 82
Other daily mileage—lunch, business,
and so on (miles)
50 (one to two times
per week)
20–30 10–40
Average weekly mileage 410 501 524

THE CURRENT SITUATION IN AT 5
2. An industrial company usually changes the design and manufacturing
process of its product every few years, not always on a regular basis. In
this situation, test results of a previous model’s testing have only relative
usefulness, but they are not directly applicable.
3. Field testing can only provide incomplete initial information for solving
problems related to an integrated system of quality, reliability, and main-
tainability as will be shown in this book.
4. A combination of laboratory and field testing is more useful for finding
a solution to these and many other problems.
These problems show that after describing its field testing, and the tests of
the above-mentioned models,Toyota still had many problems in reliability and
safety that led to recalls, complaints, degradation, and failures. Consider one
more example from Toyota’s practice.The report Hybrid Electric Vehicle End-
of-Life Testing on Honda Insight [7] stated that “Two model year 2004 Toyota
Prius hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) entered ART in one fleet in Arizona
during November 2003. Each vehicle will be driven 160,000 miles.After reach-
ing 160,000 miles each, the two Prius HEVs will have their fuel efficiencies
retested on dynamometers (with and without air conditioning), and their bat-
teries will be capacity tested. All sheets and maintenance logs for these vehi-
cles give detailed information such as miles driven, fuel economy, operations
and maintenance requirements,operating costs,life-cycle costs,and any unique
driving issues . . .”
In fact, this was an accelerated field test performed by professional drivers
for short periods of time (maximum of 2–3 years).This testing cannot provide
the necessary information for an accurate prediction of reliability, life cycle
costs, and maintenance requirements during a real service life since it does not
take into account the following interactions during the service life of the car:
• The corrosion process and other output parameters, as well as input influ-
ences that act during a vehicle’s service life
• The effects of the operators’ (customers’) influences on the vehicle’s reli-
ability because it was used by professional drivers during the above
testing
• The effects of other real-life problems
Mercedes-Benz calls similar testing “durability testing.” For example, the
test program for the new Mercedes-Benz C-Class stated in Reference 8
“. . . For the real-life test that involved 280 vehicles they were exposed to a
wide range of climatic and topographical conditions. Particularly significant
testing was carried out in Finland, Germany, Dubai, and Namibia.The program
included tough ‘Heide’ endurance testing for newly developed cars, equivalent
to 300,000 km (186,000 mi) of everyday driving by a typical Mercedes
customer. Every kilometer of this endurance test is around 150 times more

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of a young girl in a strange position; she noticed specially that
Barbara invariably spoke to and of her as "Mrs. Churchill;" and
before they parted she said:
"My dear, you surely don't always intend to speak to me in that
formal manner. I am your mother now, Barbara; won't you call me
so?"
"No, dear Mrs. Churchill--no, if you please! I have never called any
one by that name since I lost my own mother, and--and I cannot do
so, indeed."
Mrs. Churchill simply said, "Very well, my dear." But in what
afterwards became a gaping wound, this may be looked upon as the
first abrasion of the skin. That gave the old lady a notion that her
daughter-in-law's tactics were to be purely defensive, that there was
to be no compromise, and that she, the old lady, was clearly to
understand that her position was on the other side of the gabions
and the fascines, the stone walls and the broad moat; that by no
means was the key of the citadel to be considered as in her
possession.
When relations of this kind in one family begin to be à tort et à
travers, there is no end to the horrible complications arising out of
them. Mrs. Churchill attempted to initiate Barbara into the mysteries
of housekeeping, and the art of successfully combating nefarious
tradesmen; but the success which attended the old lady's efforts
may be guessed from Barbara's interview with Mrs. Harding. She
tried to get Barbara to walk out with her; but Barbara had not been
accustomed to walk in London streets, and was timid at crossings,--
which made the old lady irate; and was frightened at the way in
which men stared, and on some occasions spoke out unreservedly
their opinions of her beauty. She had liked the outspoken admiration
of the crowd, as she sat well forward in the carriage on drawing-
room days; but then she knew that she had Jeames with his long
cane in reserve in case of need; though I doubt whether Jeames

would have been more useful in case of actual attack than old Mrs.
Churchill, who invariably resented these unsolicited compliments to
her daughter-in-law with a snort of defiance, and who usually
carried a stout umbrella with a ferule at the end, which would have
made a very awkward weapon, and which she would have wielded
with right good will. Misunderstandings were constant: after the first
few occasions of their meeting, Barbara did not ask Mrs. Churchill to
the house for fear of appearing formal; whereupon the old lady,
when Frank called at her lodgings, asked what she had done to be
exiled from her son's house. Pacified and settled as to this point, the
old lady, to show her forgiveness, called in so frequently, that
Barbara told her husband she knew her housekeeping was not
perfection; but that she had not expected a system of espionnage,
which was evidently kept on her by his mother. When Mrs. Churchill
dined at their house, Barbara, for fear of appearing extravagant,
would have a very simple joint and pudding; whereupon the old lady
would afterwards tell Mrs. Harding, or some other friend, that
"Heaven alone knew where Frank's money went--not on their
dinners, my dear, for they're positively mean."
Nor with her husband's friends did Barbara make a very favourable
impression. They admired her, of course; to withhold that tribute
was impossible; but they were so utterly different in manner and
expression, had such different topics of conversation and such totally
opposite opinions to any thing she had ever seen or heard, that she
sat in silence before them; uttered vague and irrational replies to
questions put to her while her thoughts were far away, smiled feebly
at wrong times, and so conducted herself, that Mr. M'Malthus, a
clever Scotchman, who was worming his way into literature, and was
at that time getting a name for blunt offensive sayings (an easily
earned capital, on which many a man has lived for years), was
reported to have remarked that "a prettier woman or bigger fool
than Mrs. Churchill was not often seen."
There were others who, while they allowed that she had plenty of
common-sense (and indeed on occasion, in a cut-and-thrust

argument, Barbara showed herself cunning of fence, and by no
means deficient in repartee), would call her stuck-up and proud; and
there were some, indeed, who repudiated the mere fact of her
having lived in a different class of society to which they were not
admitted, as in itself an insult and a shame. And even those who
were disposed to soften all defects and to exaggerate all virtues--
and they were by no means few in number--failed to what they call
"get on" with the new Mrs. Churchill. They had no subjects of
conversation in common; for even when literary subjects were
introduced, they frightened Barbara by their iconoclastic tendencies;
deliberately smashing up all those gods whom she had hitherto been
accustomed to reverence, and erecting in their stead images
inscribed with names unknown to her, or known but to be shuddered
at as owned by Radicals or free-thinkers. They were men who
outraged none of the social convénances of life; about whose
manner or behaviour no direct complaint could be made; and often
she thought herself somewhat exacting when she would repeat to
herself, as she would--oh, how often!--that they were not
gentlemen: not her style of gentlemen; that is to say, not the style
of men to whom she had been accustomed. When, for instance,
would a man have dared to address his conversation to any other
man in preference to her, she being present? When could a man
have permitted her to open a door, or place a chair for herself, in
that set amongst which she had previously moved? Respect her! Her
husband's friends would ignore her presence; saying in reply to a
remark from her, "Look here, Churchill, you understand this;" or
would prevent her interrupting them (a favourite practice of hers) by
putting up their hands and saying, "Pardon-me while I state my
case," continue their argument in the most dogged manner.
What most amazed Barbara was the calm manner in which all her
sallies, however bitter or savage, were received by her husband's
intimates, and laughed away or glossed over by Frank himself. At
first her notion was to put down these persons by a calm haughty
superiority or a studied reticence, which should in itself have the
effect of showing her opinion of them: but neither demeanour had

the smallest effect on those whom it was intended to reprove. The
first time she ever perceived that any one was the least degree
inclined to oppose her sway or dispute her authority, was one
Saturday night, when Churchill's study was filled with several of his
old friends, smoking and chatting. Barbara was there too, with her
embroidery. She could stand tobacco-smoke perfectly; it did not give
her a headache, or even worse than that, redden her eyelids and
make her wink; and there was a small amount of "fastness" in it
which pleased her. Moreover her presence prevented the gathering
in the tabagie from quite sinking into a bachelor revel, the which
Barbara, as a young married woman, held in the deepest
abomination. The conversation was in full swing about books,
authors, and publishers.
"Chester's going to bring out a volume of poems," said Mr. Bloss,
an amiable young man with fluffy hair, who always had a good word
for every one. "Says he should have published them before, but he's
so many irons in the fire."
"Better put his poems where his irons are," laughed Mr. Dunster, a
merry little old gentleman with light-blue eyes, who could take the
skin off your back and plant daggers in your heart, smiling all the
time in the pleasantest manner. "Chester's next door to an idiot;
lives close by you, by the way, Bloss, doesn't he?"
All the men laughed; and even Barbara, after a look of
amazement, could not help smiling.
"He's dreadfully frightened of the critics," said another man sitting
by. "You must notice him in the Statesman yourself, Churchill, eh?"
"Or I'll speak to Harding. Poor Chester! he mustn't be allowed to
come to grief. What are his verses like? has any one seen them?"
"I have," said Mr. Bloss. "They're really--they're--well--they're not
so very bad, you know."

"What a burst of candour!" said Mr. Dunster. "Bloss, you are a
young reviewer, and I must caution you against such excessively
strong statements."
"Chester's most afraid of the Scourge," said the man who had
spoken before; "he thinks it will flay him."
"He should mollify them by saying that his verses were written at
'an early age,'" laughed Churchill.
"That wouldn't do for the Scourge; they would say the verses
were too bad even to have been written by a child in arms," said Mr.
Dunster.
"How very nice! What an old dear you are, Dunster!" said a
gentleman sitting in a corner of the fireplace exactly opposite
Barbara, with his legs stretched out on a stool, and his body
reclining on an easy-chair. This was Mr. Lacy, an artist, who, as it
was, made a very good income, but who might have taken the
highest rank had his perseverance been on a par with his talent; a
sleepy, dreamy man, with an intense appreciation of and regard for
himself.
"What do you think of all this, Mrs. Churchill?" asked Bloss; "they
are any thing but compassionate in their remarks."
"They may be or not," said Barbara, wearily. "It is all Greek to me:
while these gentlemen talk what I believe is called 'shop,' I am
utterly unable to follow the conversation."
Frank looked uneasily across at his wife, but said nothing.
"What shall we talk about, Mrs. Churchill?" said Mr. Dunster, with
an evil twinkle of his blue eyes. "Shall it be the last ball in the
Belgravia, or the new jupe; how Mario sang in the Prophète, or
whether bonnets will be worn on or off the head?"

Churchill frowned at this remark, but his brow cleared as Barbara
said with curling lip:
"You need not go so far for illustrations of what you don't
understand, Mr. Dunster. Let us discuss tolerance, domestic
enjoyments, or the pleasure of being liked by any one,--all of which
axe, I am sure, equally strange to you."
Mr. Dunster winced, and the fire faded out of his blue eyes: he did
not understand being bearded. Frank Churchill, though astonished at
seeing his wife defiant, was by no means displeased. Old Mr. Lacy,
fearing a storm, which would have ruffled him sadly, struck in at
once:
"It's a mistake, my dear Churchill; I'm convinced of it. We're not fit
for these charming creatures, we artists and writers, believe me.
We're a deucedly irritable, growling, horrible set of ruffians, who
ought to be left, like a lot of Robinson Crusoes, each on a separate
island. I can fully enter into Mrs. Churchill's feelings; and I've no
doubt that Mrs. Lacy feels exactly the same. But what do I do? I'm
compelled to shut the door in Mrs. Lacy's face--to lock Mrs. Lacy out.
She's a most excellent woman, as you know, Churchill; but she
always wants to talk to me when I ought to be at work; now, on a
sky-day, for instance! There are very few days in the year in this
detestable climate, my dear Mrs. Churchill, which permit of one's
seeing the sky sufficiently to paint it. When such a day does happen,
I go to my studio and lock the door; but I've scarcely set my palette,
before they come and rap, and want to talk to me--to ask me about
the butcher, or to tell me about the nurse's sister, or something; and
I'm obliged to whistle or sing to prevent my hearing 'em, or I should
get interested about the nurse's sister, and open the door, and then
my day's work would be spoilt."
"You're right, Lacy," said Dunster: "men who've got work to do
should remain single. They'll never--"

"Come, you're polite to my wife," said Frank. "This is flat
blasphemy against the state into which we've just entered."
"Oh, pray don't let the conversation, evidently so genial, be
stopped on my account. I'm tired, and am just going;" and with a
sweeping bow Barbara sailed out of the room.
An hour afterwards, when Frank looked in from his dressing-room,
he saw in the dim light Barbara's hair streaming over the pillow, and
going to her found traces of tears on her cheeks. Tenderly and
eagerly he asked her what had happened.
"Oh, Frank, Frank!" she exclaimed, bursting into fresh sobs; "I see
it all now! What those horrid men said is too true! We were worse
than mad to marry. Your friends will never understand me, while I
shall interfere with your work and your pleasure; and, oh! I am so
very, very miserable myself!"
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FLYBYNIGHTS.
To such of womankind as knew of its existence there were few
places in London so thoroughly unpopular as the Flybynights Club.
And yet it was an unpretending little room, boasting none of the
luxury of decoration generally associated in the female mind with
notions of club-life, and offering no inducement for membership
save that it was open at very abnormal hours, and that it was very
select. The necessary qualification for candidature was that you

should be somebody; no matter what your profession (provided, of
course, that you were a gentleman by position), you must have
made some mark in it, shown yourself ahead of the ruck of
competitors, before you could have been welcome among the
Flybynights. Two or three leading advocates, attached for the most
part to the criminal bar; half-a-dozen landscape and figure painters
of renown; half-a-dozen actors; a sporting man or two, with the
power of talking about something else besides Brother to Bluenose's
performances; two or three City men, who combined the most
thorough business habits with convivial tastes in the "off" hours; a
few members of Parliament, who were compelled to respect the
room as a thoroughly neutral ground; a few journalists and authors,
and a sprinkling of nothing-doing men about town,--formed the
corporate body of the club. What was its origin? I believe that
certain members of the Haresfoot Club, finding that establishment
scarcely so convivial as report had led them to believe; that the Dii
majores of the house were a few snuffy old gentlemen, without an
idea beyond the assertion of their own dignity and the keeping up of
some dreary fictions and time-worn conventionalities; that the
delights of the smoking-room, so much talked of in the outer world,
in reality consisted in sitting between a talkative barrister and a
silent stockbroker, or listening to the complaints against the
management of the club by the committee; finding, in fact, that the
place was dull, bethought them of establishing another where they
could be more amused. Hence the Flybynights.
The Flybynights had no house of their own; they merely occupied
a room on the basement of the Orpheus tavern,--a dull sombre old
room, with big couches and lounges covered with frayed leather,
with a smoky old green-flock paper, and with no ornament save a
battered old looking-glass in a fly-blown frame. Occasionally
roisterers new to town, on their way to the big concert-room of the
Orpheus, where they were to be enchanted with the humour of Mr.
Bloss's "Dying Cadger's Lament," or the pathos of Mr. Seeinault's
"Trim-built Wherry," would in mistake push open the green-baize
door leading to the Flybynights sanctum, and immediately withdraw

in dismay at the dinginess of the room and the grim aspect of its
occupants. That grimness, however, was only assumed at the
apparition of a stranger; when the members were alone among
themselves, perfect freedom from restraint was the rule. And if, on
the next morning, the jurymen who listened with awe to the
withering denunciations which fell from the lips of the learned
counsel for the prosecution,--the bank-directors who nodded
approval to the suggestions of certain shrewd financiers,--the noble
sitters who marked the brows of the artists engaged on their
portraits, "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,"--nay, even the
patients who gazed with eager eyes to glean something from the
countenances of the physicians then clutching their pulses,--had
seen counsel, financiers, artists, and physicians on the previous
evening at the Flybynights, they could not have recognised them for
the same men. The fame of the club spread; anecdotes and bon-
mots ran round town more quickly, and were better received, when
they had the Flybynight stamp. It was rumoured that O'Blank and
Macaster, the great authors, were occasionally to be seen there in
the flesh, conversing like ordinary mortals; heavy swells found out
that it was open as late as Pratt's, and asked each other, in elliptic
phraseology, "Whether 'twasn't good kind place, eh? met 'musing
kind fellahs there; made laugh'n, that kind thing?" But though they
made various attempts at election, they never got beyond an
occasional visit to the club; friendly attempts to smuggle them in as
members were dead failures; and at every ballot, generally held at
midnight, the strident voice of Rupert Robinson, author and
dramatist, could be heard asking, at the mention of any candidate's
name, "Who is he? what can he do? what has he done?" questions
which, unless satisfactorily answered, caused the immediate pilling
of the pretender to association with the Flybynights.
A few weeks after the Schröders' reception, Beresford and Simnel,
who had been dining together, strolled into the club soon after
midnight. Beresford was a member; Simnel came as his guest; the
latter would have been safe of election, as his tact and shrewdness
were very generally known and highly esteemed amongst the men,

but he always refused to be put in nomination. "It's all very well for
Beresford," he would say; "he's a Commissioner, and can do as he
likes; I'm an upper servant; and though you're a deuced pleasant set
of fellows, you haven't got a great name for respectability with the
B.P., or British Public, whom I serve. It's horribly virtuous, is the B.P.,
and is always in bed before you sweet youths meet in this bower of
bliss. So that though I'm delighted to come occasionally with Charley
and pay you a visit, I must be in a position, if called upon, to swear
that I'm not an affiliated member of your sacred brotherhood." The
other men understood all this, and liked Simnel better for his
candour; and there was no visitor at the Flybynights more welcome
than he. It was a great occasion at the Flybynights; one of the
members, Mr. Plinlimmon the poet, had that day been giving a
lecture "On Sentiment, its Use and Abuse," at St. Cecilia's Hall, and
had had great success. For Mr. Plinlimmon was not a mere common
poet who made verses and sold them; he was cousin to Lady
Heritage, whose husband was the Lord Privy-Purse; and he was very
well off, and wrote only for his amusement, and consequently was
the very man to be patronised. Moreover, he wrote weak little
verselets, like very-much-diluted Wordsworth, abounding in
passages quotable for Academy pictures of bread-and-butter
children; and he was much taken up by Mr. Spicklittle, the editor of
the Boomerang Magazine, so soon as it was understood that he
stood well with the fashionable world. And there had been a very
fashionable audience at St. Cecilia's Hall to hear Mr. Plinlimmon on
"Sentiment," and the stalls had been filled with what was afterwards
stated in the public prints to be the rank and flower of the land; and
high-born women had complimented him on the conclusion of his
labours, and had voted his lecture charming; all of which thoroughly
consoled the lecturer, and enabled him to forget the rude conduct of
certain rough-spoken critics in the body of the hall, who had loudly
cried "Bosh!" at his finest passages, and gone out with much
shuffling of thick boots and dropping of heavy walking-sticks long
before his peroration. And after dining with a countess, Mr.
Plinlimmon thought that the right thing was to go down and show

himself at the Flybynights Club, of which he was a member; and he
had entered the room just before Beresford and Simnel arrived.
"Hail, Plinlimmon!" shouted Mr. Magnus the historian, with kindly
glances beaming through his spectacles; "hail, bard of the what-
d'ye-call-it! How air you, colonel?"
"Hallo, Plinlimmon!" shouted Mr. Rupert Robinson; "been giving a
show, haven't you? what sort of house did you have? who looked
after your checks? you were very well billed, I noticed."
Plinlimmon shuddered.
"Lecturing, haven't you?" asked Mr. Slater, critic of the Moon.
"Yes," said Plinlimmon, "I have been giving a lecture."
"Ah!" said Mr. Schrink, critic of the Statesman, "if I'm not wrong,
Dr. Johnson defines the verb to lecture as to 'instruct insolently and
dogmatically.' You're quite capable of that, Plinlimmon."
"What was your subject, sir?" asked Mr. Mugg, low comedian of
the Sanspareil Theatre.
"Sentiment, sir!" said Mr. Plinlimmon, fiercely; it began to dawn on
him that he was being chaffed.
"Deary me!" said Mr. Mugg, with feigned wonder and uplifted
hands; "sentiment, eh? them's my sentiments!"
"Silence, you ribalds!" said Mr. Magnus. "You had a large
attendance, I hear, Plinlimmon; more women than men, though, I
suppose? Men don't come in the daytime."
"There was a great gathering of the female aristocracy," said
Plinlimmon, perking up his head.

"One old woman jawing always brings together a lot of others,"
growled Mr. Dunster, beneath his breath. He had been apparently
dozing in a far corner of the room, but had roused up at the word
"aristocracy,"--as sure an irritant to him as a red rag to a bull,--and
his bright blue eyes were gleaming.
"I didn't think much of your delivery, Plinlimmon," said Mr. Slater.
"It was as slow as a midday postman's, and not so sure," said Mr.
Schrink; "you got uncommonly drowsy and bag-pipy at times."
"I'll tell you what it is Plinlimmon," said Mr. Dunster; "you are
uncommonly dreary! You're a swell, and you can't help it; but you
were horribly slow. I'll tell you what it is, my young friend; you're far
too dull by yourself,--you want a piano."
During the roar which followed this remark, Beresford felt a light
touch on his arm, and turning round saw Dr. Prater.
Not to be known to Dr. Prater was to confess that the "pleasure of
your acquaintance" was of little value; for assuredly, had it been
worth any thing, Dr. Prater would have had it by hook or by crook. A
wonderful man, Dr. Prater, who had risen from nothing, as his
detractors said; but however that might be, he had a practice
scarcely excelled by any in London. Heart and lungs were Dr. Prater's
specialities; and persons imagining themselves afflicted in those
regions came from all parts of England, and thronged the doctor's
dining room in Queen-Anne Street in the early forenoons, vainly
pretending to read Darwin On the Fertilisation of Orchids, the Life of
Captain Hedley Vicars, or the Supplement of yesterday's Times; and
furtively glancing round at the other occupants of the room, and
wondering what was the matter with them. That dining-room looked
rather different about a dozen times in the season, of an evening,
when the books were cleared away, and the big bronze gas-
chandelier lighted, and the doctor sat at the large round-table
surrounded by a dozen of the pleasantest people in London. Such a

mixture! Never was such a man for "bringing people together" as Dr.
Prater. The manager of the Italian Opera (Dr. Prater's name was to
all the sick-certificates for singers) would be seated next to a judge,
who would have a leading member of the Jockey Club on his other
hand, and a bishop for his vis-à-vis. Next the bishop would be a
cotton-lord, next to him the artist of a comic periodical, and next to
him a rising member of the Opposition, with an Indian colonel and
an American comedian, here on a starring engagement, in
juxtaposition. The dinner was always good, the wines excellent, and
the doctor was the life and soul of the party. He had something
special to say to every one; and as his big protruding eyes shone
and glimmered through his gold-rimmed spectacles, he looked like a
convivial little owl. A very different man over the dinner-table to the
smug little pale-faced man in black, whom wretched patients found
in the morning sitting behind a leather-covered table, on which a
stethoscope was conspicuously displayed, and who, after sounding
the chests of consumptive curates or struggling clerks, would say,
with an air of blandness, dashed with sorrow, "I'm afraid the
proverbially treacherous air of our climate will not do for us, my dear
sir! I'm afraid we must spend our winter at Madeira, or at least at
Pau. Good day to you;" and then the doctor, after shaking hands
with his patient, would slip the tips of his fingers into his trousers-
pockets, into which would fall another little paper-package to join a
number already there deposited, while the curate or clerk, whose
yearly income was perhaps two hundred pounds, and who probably
had debts amounting to twice his annual earnings, would go away
wondering whether it was better to endeavour to borrow the further
sum necessary at ruinous interest, or to go back and die in the cold
Lincolnshire clay parish, or in the bleak Northern city, as the case
might be. On one thing the doctor prided himself greatly, that he
never let a patient know what he thought of him. He would bid a
man remove his waistcoat with a semi-jocund air, and the next
instant listen to a peculiar "click" inside his frame, which betrayed
the presence of heart-disease liable at any moment to carry the man
off, without altering a muscle of his face or a tone of his voice.
"Hum! ha! we must be a little careful; we must not expose ourselves

to the night-air! Take a leetle more care of yourself, my dear sir; for
instance, I would wear a wrap round the throat--some wrap, you
know, to prevent the cold striking to the part affected. Send this to
Bell's, and get it made up, and take it three times a-day; and let me
see you on--on Saturday. Good day to you." And there would not be
the smallest quiver in the hard metallic voice, or the smallest twinkle
in the observant eye behind the gold-rimmed glasses, although the
doctor knew that the demon Consumption, by his buffet, had raised
that red spot on the sufferer's cheek, and was rapidly eating away
his vitality.
But if Dr. Prater kept a strict reticence to his patients as regarded
their own ailments, he was never so happy as when enlarging to
them on the diseases of their fellow-sufferers, or of informing
esoteric circles of the special varieties of disorder with which his
practice led him to cope. "You ill, my dear sir!" he would say to some
puny specimen; then, settling himself into his waistcoat after
examination, "you complain of narrow-chestedness,--why, my dear
sir, do you know Sir Hawker de la Crache? You've a pectoral
development which is perfectly surprising when contrasted with Sir
Hawker's. But then he, poor man! last stage,--Madeira no good,--
would sit up all night playing whist at Reid's Hotel. Algiers no good,--
too much brandy, tobacco, and baccarat with French officers--
nothing any good. You, my dear sir, compared to Sir Hawker--pooh,
nonsense!" Or in another form: "Any such case, my dear madam?
any such case?"--turning to a large book, having previously
consulted a small index--"a hundred such! Here, for instance, Lady
Susan Bray, now staying at Ventnor, living entirely on asses'-milk--in
some of our conditions we must live on asses'-milk--left lung quite
gone, life hanging by a thread. You're a Juno, ma'am, in comparison
to Lady Susan!" There was no mistake, however, about the doctor's
talent; men in his own profession, who sneered at his charlatanerie
of manner, allowed that he was thoroughly well versed in his
subject. He was very fond of young men's society; and, with all his
engagements, always found time to dine occasionally with the
Guards at Windsor, with a City Company or two, or with a snug set

en petit comité in Temple chambers, and to visit the behind-scenes
of two or three theatres, the receptions of certain great ladies, and
occasionally the meetings of the Flybynights Club. To the latter he
always came in a special suit of clothes on account of the
impregnation of tobacco-smoke; and when coming thither he left his
carriage and his address, in case he was required, at the Minerva,
with orders to fetch him at once. It would never have done for some
of his patients to know that he was a member of the Flybynights.
Such was Dr. Prater, who touched Beresford on the arm and said,
"Not again, my dear sir! I will not be balked of the opportunity of
saying, 'how d'ye do?' to you again."
"Ah, doctor," said Beresford with that apparent frankness and
bonhomie to which he owed so much of his popularity, "delighted to
see you! But what do you mean 'balked of the opportunity'? Where
was that?"
"A few weeks since, just before I left town;--I've been away, and
Dr. Seaton has kindly attended to my practice;--we met at the house
of our charming friend Mrs. Schröder; but I could not catch your
eye. You were too well engaged; there was, as somebody--I don't
know who, but somebody that every one knows--has said, there was
metal more attractive. Ha! ha! A charming woman, Mrs. Schröder! a
very charming woman!"
"Very charming," echoed Mr. Beresford shortly, not particularly
caring about finding himself thoroughly focussed by the doctor's
sharpest glances concentrated through his spectacles. "By the way,
don't you know our secretary, Mr. Simnel, Dr. Prater?"
The gentlemen bowed. "I have the pleasure of being well
acquainted with Mr. Simnel by name, and of being at the present
moment engaged in a correspondence with him in reference to a
certificate which I have given. And, by the way, my dear sir," turning

to Simnel, "you really must give young Pierrepoint his six weeks. You
must indeed!"
"If it rested with me, doctor, I'd give him unlimited leave; confer
on him the order of the 'sack,'" said Simnel, bluntly--"an idle stuck-
up young hound!"
"Harsh words, my dear sir; harsh words! However, I will leave our
young friend's case with you and Mr. Beresford; I am sure it could
not be in better hands. You were not in Saxe-Coburg Square the
other night, I think? De-lightful party!"
"No," said Simnel, "I'm not a great evening-party man myself; it's
only your butterflies of fashion, like our friend here, who enjoy those
light and airy gaieties. My pleasures are of a more substantial kind.
By the way, doctor, how's Kitty Vavasour's cough?"
The doctor's eyes twinkled as he replied, "Oh, much better--very
much better. Horrible draught down that first entrance, my dear sir,
as she perhaps told--I mean, as you probably know. Dreadful
draught! enough to kill half the coryphées in London. I've spoken to
Grabb about it, but he won't do any thing; and when I hinted at the
drapery, asked me if I thought he was going to let his ballet-girls
dance in bathing-gowns. Very rude man, Grabb."
"Very good style they did that in the other night," said Beresford,
cutting in--"in Saxe-Coburg Square, I mean--very good, wasn't it? I
suppose it was the lady's taste; but when they get hold of a woman
with any notion of arrangement and effect, these parvenu fellows
from the City certainly don't grudge the money for their fun. And in
the way the Schröders are living, the establishment must cost a
pretty sum, I should imagine."
"A pretty sum indeed, my dear sir," said the doctor. "However, I
understand on all sides that Mr. Schröder can perfectly afford it. I
hear from those who ought to know" (a great phrase of Dr. Prater's,
this) "that his income is princely!" And then the doctor looked at the

other two and repeated "princely!" and smacked his lips as though
the word had quite a nice taste in his mouth.
"It's a good thing to be a Polish Jew," growled Mr. Simnel. "This
fellow's ancestors lent money to long-haired Grafs and swaggering
Electors, and got their interest when they could; and thought
themselves deuced lucky not to get their teeth pulled out when they
asked for a little on account, or not to be put on the fire when they
presented their bill. Their descendant lives in pleasanter days; we've
given up pulling out their teeth, worse luck! And that neat little
instrument, 'Victoria, by the grace,' is as open to Jews as Christians.
I always thought there was something wrong in that."
"This Schröder is a tremendously lucky fellow, by Jove!" said
Beresford. "He's got a very pretty wife and an enormous fortune;
and though he's not young, to judge from all appearances, has a
constitution of iron, and will live for years to enjoy his good fortune."
"Ah, my dear sir," said Dr. Prater in a low and solemn voice, "I'm
afraid you're not correct in one particular; not correct in one
particular!" and the little man shook his head and looked specially
oracular.
Simnel glanced up at him at once from under his heavy eyebrows;
but Beresford only said, "Why, doctor, you're not going to try and
make me believe any envious disparagement of Schröder's riches?"
"Not for the world, my dear sir; not for the world! Such rumours
have been spread! but, as you say, only among the envious and
jealous, who would whisper-away Coutts's credit, and decline to
intrust their miserable balance to Barings'! No; my doubts as to
Schröder relate to another matter."
"His health?" said Simnel, who had kept his eyes on the solemn
little man, and was regarding him keenly.

"Pre-cisely!" said the doctor. And he stepped aside for an instant,
helped himself to a pinch of snuff from a box on a neighbouring
table, and returned to his companions, gazing up at them with a
solemn steady stare that made him look more like an owl than ever.
"His health!" exclaimed Beresford, "why there's surely nothing the
matter with that! He has the chest of a horse and the digestion of an
ostrich. I don't know a man of his age to whom, to look at, you'd
give a longer life."
"Right, my dear sir," replied the doctor, "right enough from a non-
professional view. But Mr. Schröder, like the gentleman of whom I
have heard, but whose name I can't call to mind, has that within
which passeth show. I know the exact state of his condition."
"This is very interesting," said Mr. Simnel, drawing closer to the
doctor on the ottoman; "very interesting, indeed; yours is a
wonderful profession, doctor, for gaining insight into men and things.
Would it be too much to ask you to tell us a little more about this
particular case?"
"Well, you know, I don't often talk of these matters; there are
men in our profession, my dear sir, who gossip and chatter, and I
believe make it pay very well; but they are men of no intellect, mere
quacks and charlatans--quacks and charlatans! But with gentlemen
like yourselves, men of the world, I don't mind occasionally revealing
a few of the secrets of the--the--what d'ye call 'em?--prison-house.
The fact is--" and the doctor lowered his voice and looked
additionally solemn,--"that Mr. Schröder's life hangs by a thread."
Both his listeners started, and Mr. Simnel from between his set
teeth said, "The devil!"
"By a thread!" repeated the doctor, holding out his finger and
thumb as though he actually had the thread between them. "He may
go off at any moment; his life is not certain for an hour; he's

engaged, as you know, in tremendous transactions, and any sudden
fright or passion would be his certain death."
"Ah, then his disease is--"
"Heart, my dear sir, heart!" said the doctor, tapping himself on the
left side of his waistcoat; "his heart's diseased,--one cannot exactly
say how far, but I suspect strongly,--and he may go out at any
moment like the snuff of a candle."
"Have you known this long?" asked Beresford.
"Only two days: he came to me two days ago to consult me about
a little worrying cough which he described himself as having; and in
listening at his chest I heard the death-beat. No mistaking it, my
dear sir; when you've once heard that 'click,' you never forget it."
"By Jove, how horrible!" said Simnel.
"Poor devil! does he know it himself?" asked Beresford.
"Know it, my dear sir? Of course not. You don't imagine I told
him? Why the shock might have killed him on the spot. Oh, dear, no!
I prescribed for his cough, and told him specially to avoid all kind of
excitement: that was the only warning I dare give him."
As the doctor said this, Mr. Simnel rose. "It's a horrible idea," said
he with a shudder--"horrible!"
"Very common, my dear sir, very common. If you knew how many
men there are whom I meet out at dinner, in society, here and there,
whom I know to be as distinctly marked for death as if I saw the
plague-spot on their breasts!"
"Well, you've completely frightened me," said Beresford. "I'll get
home to bed, and try and forget it in sleep. Are you coming, Simnel?

Good night, doctor." And the two gentlemen went out together,
leaving the little doctor already sidling up to another group.
When they were out in the street, and had started on their
homeward walk, Simnel said to his companion:
"That was strange news we've just heard."
"Strange, indeed," replied Beresford. "Do you think the doctor's
right?"
"Not a doubt of it; he's a garrulous idiot; as full of talk as an old
woman; but I have always heard very skilful in his profession, and in
this special disease I believe there are none to beat him. Oh, yes,
he's right enough. Well, you always held winning cards, and now the
game looks like yours."
"Simnel," said Beresford, stopping short and looking up into his
face, "what the devil do you mean?"
"Mean!" echoed Simnel; "I'll tell you when you come on; it's cold
stopping still in the streets, and the policeman at the corner is
staring at you in unmitigated wonder. Mean!" he repeated, as they
walked on; "well, it's not a very difficult matter to explain. You hear
that Schröder has heart-disease--that at any moment he may die.
You always had a partiality for Mrs. Schröder, I believe; and if there
be any truth in what I gather from yourself and others, you stand
very well with her."
"Well?"
"Well! You're dense to-night, Master Charley. Well? Why, you've as
great a chance as man ever had before you. You've only to wait until
what Prater told us of happens,--and if he's right, it won't be long,--
and then marry the widow and start as a millionaire."

"By Jove, it is a great chance!" said Beresford, looking at his
friend.
"And yet you didn't see it until just now. Why, it opened straight
up in front of me the instant that chattering medico mentioned the
fact. If you play your cards well, you're all right; but remember,
flirtation and courtship are two different things, and must be
managed differently. And recollect it's for the latter you're now going
in. Now, here's my street, so adieu. Sleep on this matter, and we'll
talk of it to-morrow morning."

"It's a tremendous fluke," said Mr. Simnel, as he leisurely
undressed himself; "but it will serve my purpose admirably. That
eight hundred pounds of mine lent to Master Charley looks much
less shaky than it did, and what a trump-card to play with Kate!"
CHAPTER XXII.
MR. SIMNEL AT THE DEN.
Two days after the events recorded in the last chapter, Mr. Simnel
left the Tin-Tax Office a couple of hours earlier than his usual time of
departure, and taking a cab, hurried off to his apartments in
Piccadilly. Overlooking the Green Park, sufficiently lofty to be
removed from the immediate noise of the traffic, and situate in that
part of the street which was macadamised, there were, perhaps, no
more delightful chambers in town than those occupied by the Tin-
Tax secretary. They consisted but of three rooms--sitting-room, bed-
chamber, and bath-room; but all were lofty and well-proportioned,
and were furnished in a thoroughly luxurious manner. A big
bookcase, with its contents admirably selected, covered one side of
the sitting-room, on the walls of which hung Raphael Morghen
prints, and before-letter proofs after Landseer, Leslie, and Stanfield;
a round table, over which were suspended three swinging
moderator-lamps, with white-china shades and crimson-silk fringe; a
sofa and numerous easy-chairs, all in crimson velvet and walnut-
wood; rich spoils of Bohemian glass, standing in odd corners on
quaint oak cabinets; two Sèvres china dogs, in begging attitude,

mounting guard on either end of the mantelshelf; and a flying
female figure suspended across the looking-glass;--such were
among the incongruous contents of the room. On the table, two
yellow-paper covered French novels, a Horace, and M'Culloch's
Commercial Directory lay side by side; in the looking-glass, cards for
evening-parties and dinners were jostled by tickets soliciting vote
and interest in approaching elections of charitable societies,
remindings of gatherings of learned bodies, and small bills for books
or boots. It was Mr. Simnel's pleasure to keep up this mélange; his
time was generally fully occupied; he chose people to consider that
he had not a moment to himself; he wished those who called on him
on business to see the invitations, in order that they might judge
therefrom of his position in society; and he took care that the
attention of those idle droppers-in, who came on a Sunday morning,
for instance, or late at night, to have a chat, should be directed to
the business-cards, to give them a notion of his standing in the
money-making, business world. Since Mr. Simnel assumed the reins
at the Tin-Tax Office, two or three hundred men had sat with their
legs under that round table, discussing an excellent dinner, and
meeting pleasant people; but not one of them had ever left the
room without Mr. Simnel's feeling that his coming had been
productive of benefit to his host, and that the invitation had fully
answered its intent. Baron Oppenhardt, the great financier, never
could tell what made him accept Simnel's invitation, save that he
knew his host was connected with Government and had a long head
of his own; yet he never refused. And little Blurt, whose "connexion
with the press" was of a limited nature, never could understand why,
biennially, he sat under those shaded moderator-lamps in Piccadilly,
and consumed Pommery Greno out of bell-shaped glasses. But
Simnel knew why he had them to dinner, and took their value out of
both Oppenhardt and Blurt.
A long-headed man, Mr. Simnel, and, to judge from the strange
smile on his face on that particular day, full of some special scheme,
as he emerged from his bedroom and looked out into Piccadilly. Any
thing but a vain man, and long past the age when the decoration of

one's person enters largely into account, Mr. Simnel had yet paid
special attention to his toilette during the short interval which had
elapsed since his arrival at home from the Tin-Tax Office. He was got
up with elaborate care and yet perfect simplicity; indeed, there was
a touch of the old school in his drab riding-trousers, white waistcoat,
blue cut-away coat, and blue bird's-eye neckerchief, with small
stand-up collars. A glance into the street showed him that his horses
were ready, and he descended at once. At the door he found his
groom mounted on a knowing-looking gray cob, short, stiff, and
sturdy, and leading a splendid thoroughbred bright bay with black
points. This Mr. Simnel mounted and rode easily away.
Through Decimus Burton's archway he turned into Hyde Park and
made at once for the Row. There were but few men lounging about
there at that time of the year, but Simnel was known to some of
them; and after nods had been exchanged, they fell to comparing
notes about him and his horse and his style of living, wondering how
it was done, admiring his cleverness, detracting from his position--
talking, in fact, as men will do of another who has beat them in this
grand struggle for place which we call life. The Row was very empty,
and Simnel paid but little attention to its occupants: now and then
he occasionally raised his whip mechanically in acknowledgment of
some passing salute, but it is to be doubted whether he knew to
whom he was telegraphing, as his thoughts were entirely fixed on
his mission. However, he wore a pleasant smile on his face, and that
was quite enough: grinning, like charity, covers a multitude of sins;
and if you only smile and hold your tongue, you can pass through
life with an éclat which excellent eloquence, combined with a serious
face, would fail to give. So Mr. Simnel went smiling along at the
easiest amble until he got clear of the Row and the town, and then
he gave the bay his head, and never drew rein until he turned up a
country lane immediately on passing Ealing Common.
Half way up this lane stood The Den, and evidences of Kate
Mellon's calling began to abound so soon as you turned out of the
high-road. In the fields on either side through the bare hedges one

could see a string of horses in cloths and head-pieces, each ridden
by a groom, skirting the hedges along which a proper riding-path
had been made; occasionally a yellow break, driven by a veteran
coachman, with a younger and more active coadjutor perched up
behind, and standing with his eyes on a level with the coach-box
observing every motion of the horses, would rumble by, while the
clay-coloured gig containing Mr. Sandcrack the veterinary surgeon,
who, in his long white cravat, beard, and tight trousers, looked a
pleasant compound of a dissenting-minister, a horse-jockey, and an
analytical chemist, was flying in and out of the lane at all times and
seasons. Mr. Simnel seemed accustomed to these scenes and
thoroughly well known amongst them, the grooms and breaksmen
touched their hats to him, and he exchanged salutations with Mr.
Sandcrack, and told him that the bay had got rid of all his wind-galls
and never went better in his life. So straight up the lane until he
arrived at the lodge, and then, before his groom could ride up, his
cheery cry of "Gate!" brought out the buxom lodge-keeper, and she
also greeted Mr. Simnel with a curtsey of recognition, and received
his largesse as he rode through; so down the little carriage-drive,
past the pigeon-house elevated on a pole, and the pointers' kennels,
and the strip of garden cultivated by the lodge-keeper, and in which
one of the lodge-keeper's dirty chubby children was always
sprawling; past the inner gates, through which could be caught
glimpses of the circular straw-ride, and the stable and loose boxes,
and the neatly gravelled courtyard, up the sweep and so to the
house-door. Freeman, the staid stud-groom from Yorkshire, had seen
the visitor's entry from the stable, where he was superintending, and
hurried up to meet him. Before Mr. Simnel's own groom had come
alongside, Freeman was at his horse's head.
"Mornin', sir," said he, touching his hat. "Missis is oop at u, close
by, givin' lesson to a young leddy, just by t' water soide: joompin'
brook, oi think. Howsever she'll be in d'rackly, oi know."
"All right, Freeman," said Mr. Simnel, leisurely dismounting.
"Horses all well? Fine weather for horseflesh, this!"

"Ay, ay, it be, sir!" said the old man. "Stood be pratty well, oi'm
thinkin': coughs and colds, and that loike, as is allays case this toime
o' year."
"Don't hurry Miss Mellon on my account, Freeman," said Mr.
Simnel; "I can wait. I'll go into the house, and you can let her know
that I'm here, when she comes in. By the way, Freeman, I haven't
seen you since Christmas: here's for old acquaintance' sake."
Freeman touched his hat gratefully, but not submissively, as he
pocketed the half-sovereign which Mr. Simnel slipped into his
capacious palm, and moved off towards the stables with the groom
and the horses.
"Good man, that," said Simnel to himself, as he went into the
house. "Straightforward, conscientious sort of fellow, and thoroughly
devoted to her. Proper style of man to have in an establishment:
thoroughly respectable--do one credit by his looks. If it ever comes
off, I certainly should keep Mr. Freeman on."
Mr. Simnel passed on into the long low dining-room, where he
found the table spread for luncheon, with a very substantial display
of cold roast beef, fowls, and tongue, sherry, and a tall bottle of
German wine. He smiled as he noticed these preparations, and then
leisurely walked round the room. He paused at an oil-painting of
Kate with a favourite horse by her side. The artist evidently knew
much more about the equine than the human race. The horse's
portrait was admirable, but poor Kitty, with vermilion cheeks and
glaring red hair, and a blue habit with long daubs of light in it, like
rain-streaks on a window, was a lamentable object to look on. Only
one other picture decorated the walls, a portrait of the Right Hon.
the Earl of Quorn, aged 61, founder of the Society for the Relief of
Incapacitated Jobmasters and Horse-dealers, dedicated to him by his
faithful servants the publishers; representing a hale old gentleman,
remarkable principally for his extraordinary length of check-
neckcloth, seated on a weight-carrying cob, and staring intently at

nothing. On a side-table lay a thick book, Youatt on the Horse, and a
thin pamphlet, Navicular not Incurable, a Little Warbler (poor Kitty!),
and a kind of album, into which a heterogeneous mixture of recipes
for horse-medicines, scraps of hunting news, lists of prices fetched
at the sales of celebrated studs, and other sporting memoranda had
been pasted. Simnel was looking through this, and had just come
upon a slip of printed matter, evidently cut from a newspaper,
announcing the appointment of Mr. Charles Beresford to be a
commissioner of the Tin-Tax Office, in place of Cockle pensioned--a
slip against which there were three huge deep pencil-scorings--when
the door opened and his hostess entered.
Although her habit was draggled and splashed, and her hair
disarranged and blown about her face, Kate Mellon never had
looked, to Simnel's eyes at least, more thoroughly charming than
she did at that instant. The exercise she had just gone through had
given her a splendid colour, her eyes were bright and sparkling, her
whole frame showed to perfection in the tight-fitting jacket; and as
she came into the room and removed her hat, the knot of hair
behind, loosened from the comb, fell over her shoulders in golden
profusion. She wound it up at once with one hand, advancing with
the other outstretched to her guest.
"Sorry I'm late, Simnel," said she; "but I had a pupil here, and
business is business, as you know well enough. Can't afford to throw
away any chance, so I gave her her hour, and now she's off, and I
am all the better by a guinea. I didn't stop to change my habit
because I heard you were waiting, and I knew you wouldn't mind."
"You couldn't look more enchanting than you do now, Kate," said
Simnel.
"Yes, yes; I know," said Kitty; "all right! But I thought you knew
better than that. This is the wrong shop for flummery of that sort, as
you ought to have learnt by this time. Have some lunch?"

They sat down to the table, and during the meal talked on
ordinary subjects; for the most part discussing their common
acquaintance, but always carefully avoiding bringing Beresford's
name forward. When they had finished, Kate said, "You want to
smoke, of course. I think I shall have a puff myself. No, thank you;
your weeds are too big for me; I've got some Queens here that old
Sir John Elle sent me after I broke that roan mare for his daughter.
By George, what a brute that was! nearly killed me at first, she did;
and now you might ride her with a pack-thread."
Simnel did not reply. Kate Mellon curled herself up on an ottoman
in the window with her habit tucked round her; lit a small cigar; and
slowly expelling the smoke said, as the blue vapour curled round her
head, "And now to business! You wanted to talk to me, you said;
and I told you to come up to-day. What's it all about?"
"About yourself, Kate. You know thoroughly well my feelings to
you; you know how often I have--"
"Hold on a minute!" said Kate; "I know that you've been
philandering and hanging on about me,--or would have been, if I'd
have let you,--for this year past. I know that well enough; but I
thought there was to be none of this. I thought I'd told you to drop
that subject, and that you'd consented to drop it. I told you I
wouldn't listen to you, and--"
"Why would not you listen to me, Kate?" said Simnel earnestly.
"Why? Because--"
"Don't trouble yourself to find an excuse; I'll tell you why," said
Simnel. "Because you were desperately bent on a fruitless errand;
because you were beating the wind and trying to check the storm;
because you were in love,--I must speak plainly, Kitty, in a matter
like this,--in love with a man who did not return your feeling, and
who even now is boasting of your passion, and laughing at you as its
dupe!"

"What!" cried the girl, throwing away the cigar and starting to her
feet.
"Sit down, child," said Simnel, gently laying his hand on her arm;
"sit down, and hear me out. I know your pluck and spirit; and
nothing grieves me more, or goes more against the grain with me,
than to have to tell you this. But when I tell you that the man to
whom you so attached yourself has spoken lightly and sneeringly of
your infatuation; that amongst his friends he has laughingly talked of
a scene which occurred on the last occasion of his visit to this house,
when you suggested that he should marry you--"
"Did he say that?" asked the girl, pushing her hair back from her
face,--"did he say that?"
"That and more; laughed at the notion, and--"
"O my God!" shrieked Kate Mellon, throwing up her arms. "Spare
me! stop, for Heaven's sake, and don't let me hear any more. Did he
say that of me? Then they'll all know it, and when I meet them will
grin and whisper as I know they do. Haven't I heard them do it of
others a thousand times? and now to think they'll have the pull of
me. O good Lord, good Lord!" and she burst into tears and buried
her face in her handkerchief. Then suddenly rousing, she exclaimed:
"What do you come and tell me this for, Simnel? What business is it
of yours? What's your motive in coming and smashing me up like
this?"
"One, and one only," said Simnel in a low voice. "I wanted to
prevent your demeaning yourself by ever showing favour to a man
who has treated you so basely. I wanted you to show your own pride
and spirit by blotting this Beresford from your thoughts. I wanted
you to do this--whatever may be the result--because--I love you,
Kate!"
"That's it!" she cried suddenly--"that's it! You're telling me lies and
long stories, and breaking my heart, and making me make a fool of

myself, only that you may stand well with me and get me to like
you! How do I know what you say is true? Why should Charley do
this? Why did Charley refuse what I offered him? I meant it honestly
enough, God knows. Oh, why did he refuse it?" and again she burst
into tears.
"Oh, he did refuse it?" said Simnel, quietly. "So far, then you see I
am right; and you will find I am right throughout. I'll tell you why he
acted as he did to you. Because he's full of family pride, and
because he never cared for you one rush. At this very moment he is
desperately in love with a married woman, and is only awaiting her
husband's death to make her his wife!"
"Can you prove that?" asked Kate eagerly.
"I can! you shall have ample opportunity of satisfying yourself--"
"Does the husband suspect?"
"Not in the least."
"That's right!" said the girl with sudden energy--"that'll do! Only
let me prove that, and I'll give him up for ever."
"If I do this for you, Kitty, surely my love will be sufficiently
proved. You will then--"
"Yes, we'll talk of that afterwards. I'll see you next week, and
you'll tell me more of this new love-affair of--of his! Don't stop now.
I'm all out of sorts. You've upset me. I wasn't in condition. I've been
doing a little too much work lately. Go now, there's a good fellow!
Good-by." Then stopping suddenly--"You're sure you're not selling
me, Simnel?"
"I swear it!" said Simnel.

"I wish to heaven you had been," said the poor girl; "but we'll see
about the new business next week. I think we'll spoil that pretty
game between us, eh? There, good-by." And she set her teeth tight,
and rushed from the room.
"So fax so good," said Mr. Simnel, as he rode quietly home. "She's
taken it almost a little too strongly. My plan now is to soften her and
turn her to me. I think I have a card in my hand that will win that
trick, and then--the game's my own!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
MR. BERESFORD IN PURSUIT.
The idea suggested by Simnel, after the interview with Dr. Prater
at the Flybynights, came upon Mr. Beresford with extraordinary
force. It opened up to him a new train of thought, gave a complete
turn to his intended course of life, afforded him matter for the
deepest study and reflection. As we have already seen, he was a
man with a faultless digestion, and without a scrap of heart--two
qualities which had undoubtedly greatly conduced towards his
success in life, and towards making him a careless, easy-going
worldly philosopher. When he first saw Miss Townshend at Bissett
Grange, he remembered her as a cheery little flirt whom he had met
during the previous season; and finding her companionable and
amusing, determined to carry on a flirtation which should serve as a
pastime, and, at the break-up of the party, be consigned to that
limbo already replete with similar amourettes. The presence of
Captain Lyster, and the unmistakable evidence of his passion for the

young lady, gave Mr. Beresford very little annoyance; he had a
notion that, save in very exceptional cases, of which indeed he had
had no experience, women had a horror of an earnest lover; that
watchings and waitings, hangings on words, deep gazings into eyes,
and all outward signs of that passion which induces melancholy and
affords themes for poets, were as much rococo and out of date as
carrying a lady's glove in your hat and perpetually seeking a fight
with some one on her account. He thought that women hated
"dreary" lovers, and were far more likely to be won by rattle,
laughter, and raillery than by the deepest devotion of a silent and
sighing order. Moreover, as he was only going in for flirtation, he
would make his running while it lasted, and leave the Captain to
come in with the weight-carrying proprieties after he had gone.
So far at first. Then came the recollection of his straitened
position, the reflection that Miss Townshend was an heiress, and the
determination to go in seriously for a proposal--a determination
which was very short-lived, owing to the discovery of the lady's
engagement to Gustav Schröder. From the time of her marriage,
Mrs. Schröder was by Beresford mentally relegated to a corps which
included several married ladies of his acquaintance; for the most
part young and pretty women, whose husbands were either elderly,
or immersed in business, or, what was equally available, immersed in
pleasure, and more attentive to other men's wives than to their own;
ladies who required "notice," as they phrased it, and who were
sufficiently good-looking to command it from some men, between
whom and themselves there existed a certain understanding.
Nothing criminal, nor approaching to criminality; for despite the
revelations of the Divorce Court, there is, I take it, a something,
whether it be in what is called our phlegmatic temperament,
whether it be in the bringing-up of our English girls,--bringing-up of
domesticity utterly unknown to Continental-bred young ladies, which
hallows and keeps constantly present the image of the doting father
and the tender mother, and all the sacred home-associations,--a
something which strengthens the weak and arrests the hand of the
spoiler, and leaves the sacrifice incomplete. The necessity for

"notice," or for "being understood," or "for having some one to rely
on" (the husband engaged in business or in the House being, of
course, utterly untrustworthy), has created a kind of society which I
can only describe as a kind of solid bread-and-butter demi-monde--a
demi-monde which, as compared with that state of existence known
in France under the title, is as a club to a tavern, where the same
things are carried on, but in a far more genteel and decorous
manner. The relations of its different members to each other are as
free from Wertherian sentimentalism as they are from Parisian
license, and would probably be considered severely correct by that
circle of upper Bohemians, of whose lives the younger Dumas has
constituted himself the chronicler.
Having, then, mentally appointed Mrs. Schröder a member of this
society, Mr. Beresford took upon himself the office of her cavalier,
and behaved to her in due form. When they were in company
together, he sedulously kept his eyes upon her, strove to anticipate
her wishes, and let her see that it was she who entirely absorbed
him; he always dropped his voice when he spoke to her, even
though it were about the merest trifle; and he invariably took notice
of the arrangements of her dress, hair, and appearance in general,
and made suggestions which, being in excellent taste, were
generally approved and carried out. Then he found out Mrs.
Schröder's romantic side, a little bit of nineteenth-century sentiment,
dashed with drawing-room cynicism, which found its exponent in Mr.
Owen Meredith's weaker verses; and there they found plenty of
quotations about not being understood, and the "little look across
the crowd," and "what is not, might have been," and other choice
little sentiments, which did not tend to elevate Mr. Gustav Schröder,
then hard at work in the City, in his wife's good opinion. Indeed,
being a very weak little woman, with a parasitical tendency to cling
for support to something, and being without that something, which
she had hitherto found in Barbara, free from the dread which her
father's presence always imposed upon her, and having no
companion in her husband, Mrs. Schröder began to look forward
with more and more eagerness to her opportunities of meeting

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