tters to her father?"

"She says she dare not, and as for me, I could not. That was why I
telegraphed to you."

"You want me to be intercessor? No, Scrymgeour; your only honorable
course is marriage."

"But you must help me. It is all your fault, teaching me to like the
Arcadia Mixture."

I thought this so impudent of Scrymgeour that I bade him good-night at
once. All the men on the stair are still confident that he would have
married her, had the lady not cut the knot by eloping with Scrymgeour's
double.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVII.

THE ROMANCE OF A PIPE-CLEANER.

[Illustration]

We continued to visit the _Arcadia_, though only one at a time now,
and Gilray, who went most frequently, also remained longest. In other
words, he was in love again, and this time she lived at Cookham.
Marriot's love affairs I pushed from me with a wave of my pipe, but
Gilray's second case was serious.

In time, however, he returned to the Arcadia Mixture, though not until
the house-boat was in its winter quarters. I witnessed his complete
recovery, the scene being his chambers. Really it is rather a pathetic
story, and so I give the telling of it to a rose, which the lady once
presented to Gilray. Conceive the rose lying, as I saw it, on Gilray's
hearth-rug, and then imagine it whispering as follows:

"A wire was round me that white night on the river when she let him take
me from her. Then I hated the wire. Alas! hear the end.

"My moments are numbered; and if I would expose him with my dying sigh,
I must not sentimentalize over my own decay. They were in a punt, her
hand trailing in the water, when I became his. When they parted that
night at Cookham Lock, he held her head in his hands, and they gazed in
each other's eyes. Then he turned away quickly; when he reached the punt
again he was whistling. Several times before we came to the house-boat
in which he and another man lived, he felt in his pocket to make sure
that I was still there. At the house-boat he put me in a tumbler of
water out of sight of his friend, and frequently he stole to the spot
like a thief to look at me. Early next morning he put me in his
buttonhole, calling me sweet names. When his friend saw me, he too
whistled, but not in the same way. Then my owner glared at him. This
happened many months ago.

[Illustration]

"Next evening I was in a garden that slopes to the river. I was on his
breast, and so for a moment was she. His voice was