rm but you have
surely heard of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?'"

"Oh, _those_! Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?'
Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?'
Well, really? I suppose you haven't a copy with you on board by any
chance?"

"There is a copy in my kit bag. The very one we used to read together.
Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don't want to see it
again."

Sam prospected among the shirts, collars, and trousers in the bag and
presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on the
lounge.

"Little by little, bit by bit," he said, "I am beginning to form a sort
of picture of this girl, this--what was her name again? Bennett--this
Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make her
seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn't keen on
golf, by any chance, I suppose?"

"I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed rather
enthusiastic. Why?"

"Well, I'd much sooner talk to a girl about golf than poetry."

"You are hardly likely to be in a position to have to talk to Wilhelmina
Bennett about either, I should imagine."

"No, there's that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. Some
girls bar golf, and then it's rather difficult to know how to start the
conversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on this
Miss Bennett's nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that at
one time or another you may have said something that offended her. I
mean, it seems curious that she should have broken off the engagement if
you had never disagreed or quarrelled about anything."

"Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. She
had a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekinese. If there was ever any
shadow of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I made
rather a point of it that I would not have it about the home after we
were married."

"I see!" said Sam. He shot his cuff once more and wrote on it:
"Dog--conciliate." "Yes, of course, that must have wounded her."

"Not half so much as he wounded me. He pinned me by the ankle the day
before we--Wilhelmina and I, I mean--were to have been married. It is
some satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got home
on the little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him clean
over the Chesterfield."

Sam shook his head reprovingly.

"You shouldn't have done t