longer unattainable; Alice walking on his arm down the aisle; Alice
mending his socks; Alice with her heavenly hands fingering his salary
envelope.

'Don't go,' he said. 'Don't go. I'll let you know now.'

* * * * *

The scene is the Strand, hard by Bedford Street; the time, that restful
hour of the afternoon when they of the gnarled faces and the bright
clothing gather together in groups to tell each other how good they
are.

Hark! A voice.

'Rather! Courtneidge and the Guv'nor keep on trying to get me, but I
turn them down every time. "No," I said to Malone only yesterday, "not
for me! I'm going with old Wally Jelliffe, the same as usual, and there
isn't the money in the Mint that'll get me away." Malone got all worked
up. He--'

It is the voice of Pifield Rice, actor.

EXTRICATING YOUNG GUSSIE

She sprang it on me before breakfast. There in seven words you have a
complete character sketch of my Aunt Agatha. I could go on indefinitely
about brutality and lack of consideration. I merely say that she routed
me out of bed to listen to her painful story somewhere in the small
hours. It can't have been half past eleven when Jeeves, my man, woke me
out of the dreamless and broke the news:

'Mrs Gregson to see you, sir.'

I thought she must be walking in her sleep, but I crawled out of bed
and got into a dressing-gown. I knew Aunt Agatha well enough to know
that, if she had come to see me, she was going to see me. That's the
sort of woman she is.

She was sitting bolt upright in a chair, staring into space. When I
came in she looked at me in that darn critical way that always makes me
feel as if I had gelatine where my spine ought to be. Aunt Agatha is
one of those strong-minded women. I should think Queen Elizabeth must
have been something like her. She bosses her husband, Spencer Gregson,
a battered little chappie on the Stock Exchange. She bosses my cousin,
Gussie Mannering-Phipps. She bosses her sister-in-law, Gussie's mother.
And, worst of all, she bosses me. She has an eye like a man-eating
fish, and she has got moral suasion down to a fine point.

I dare say there are fellows in the world--men of blood and iron, don't
you know, and all that sort of thing--whom she couldn't intimidate; but
if you're a chappie like me, fond of a quiet life, you simply curl into
a ball when you see her coming, and hope for the best. My experience is
that when Aunt Agatha wants you