d, let alone
how."

"I don't care about that. Why, it's just the very thing that'll suit me
down to the ground. I say, Stanninghame, I know you don't mind, but
Hazon? I've always stood up for Hazon, and we seem to get on all right?
Do put it to Hazon. I could pay my shot, of course."

There was a despondency of manner and tone that was extremely foreign to
the mercurial Holmes, and this, together with certain signs he had read
of late, caused Laurence to look up with a queer half smile.

"Why are you so anxious to clear from here, Holmes? Rather sudden, isn't
it?"

"Oh, I'm dead off waiting for a 'boom' that never comes. It's dashed
sickening, don't you know."

"It is. And what else is dashed sickening? That isn't all."

The other stared for a moment, then, as though he were bringing it out
with an effort, he burst forth:

"Oh, well, hang it all, Stanninghame, I don't see why I shouldn't tell
you. The fact is I've--I've got the chuck."

Laurence laughed inwardly. He understood.

"Why, I thought you were bringing it on all right," he said.

"So did I; but when I put it to her, she was dead off," said Holmes,
disconsolately savage.

"Sure?"

"Cert."

"Well, give her another show. Some women--girls especially--like that
sort of application twice over. They think it enhances their value in
some inexplicable way," said Laurence, with a touch of characteristic
satire. "I don't, but that's a matter of opinion. And, I don't want to
hurt your feelings, Holmes, but is this one worth it?"

"I don't know," answered the other savagely, driving his heel into the
ground. "It's that beast Barstow. What the deuce she can see in him,
bangs me."

"Yes, unless it is that you hold a quantity of unsaleable scrip and he
doesn't," rejoined Laurence, who had been secretly amused in watching
the progress of pretty Mabel Falkner's latest preference. "But in any
case I think you'd better not touch it, or you'll find yourself on the
one horn or other of this dilemma; if she is coming the 'playing off'
trick, why, that is despicable, and in fact not good enough; if she
means business, why, you can't go begging to her for what she has given
to the other Johnny without any begging at all. See?"

"Oh, yes, I see," was the rueful rejoinder. "By the Lord, Stanninghame,
I used to think you a deuced snarling, cynical beggar at first, but now,
'pon my soul, I believe you're right."

"Do you? Well, then, you don't want to go away up-co