ool
with the bridegroom."

"Then what more touching than that he should desire the presence of his
old comrade at such a crisis?"

"_Presence!_" began George bitterly. "If they'd said----"

I stopped him. "I know the pun," I said quickly, "and am no longer
capable of being amused at it. So that is the ground of your complaint.
I must say, George, that I regard this as a little mean of you."

"You may," answered George. "That shows you don't realise the facts. If
you were in my position you wouldn't talk like that. Why, look at it,"
he went on, warming to his subject, "here am I, a bachelor nearing
fifty, with an income, secure certainly, but by no means lavish; and
what do we find? Scarcely a day goes by without my receiving some more
or less veiled demand from persons without a shadow of claim!

"Relatives," pursued George, "one, of course, expects. I have myself
five elder sisters, all of them comfortably married with my assistance.
Pianos or dinner-sets or whatever it happened to be," explained George.
"I make no complaint there. Not even though in these cases the initial
outlay was only the beginning. I am by now seventeen times an uncle. A
pleasant position at first, but repetition stales it. The expense of
that alone is becoming appalling. Why on earth didn't Henry VIII. or
somebody institute a bounty for uncles?"

"It can't be so bad as all that."

"It would not be, if, as I say, the matter was kept within one's own
family. But you see it isn't. I have now reached that time of life in
which the rush of weddings appears to be heaviest. Everybody I ever met
seems to be doing it, and using the fact as an excuse for blackmail. I
am a poor man, and I have had enough of it!"

I made a sympathetic noise. As a matter of fact, George's friends agree
that he is very comfortably off, but I let that pass. "What are you
going to do about it?" I asked.

"This," answered George unexpectedly. He opened his pocket-book and
produced a half-sheet of note-paper. "This is going in _The Morning
Post_ to-morrow. I wrote it some time ago, but the hour has now come
when I must make a stand and endeavour to get a little of my own back.
So in she goes!"

I took the paper and read as follows: "1839-1914. Mr. George Pennywise,
of 1096, Upper Brook Street, having remained a bachelor during
twenty-five years of eligibility, invites his numerous friends to join
with him in celebrating his silver celibacy."

"The idea is not origin