here they could change it. The
boy whistled. The woman held the box of matches in one hand, and in the
other the note, fluttering in the breeze. Idlers paused and looked on.
The policeman grew authoritative and bade them pass along. They crowded
all the more. My position was becoming embarrassing. At last the boy,
remembering the badge of honour on his cap, undertook to change the note
at the hatter's at the corner of the street. So, having given the note
to the boy and bidden the policeman follow him to see fair play, and
encouraged the woman to follow the policeman, I resumed my walk down
Sackville Street.

But what a pother about a simple act of charity! In order to repeat it
habitually I shall have to rely on the fortuitous attendance of a boy
and a policeman, or have a policeman and a boy permanently attached to
my person, which would be as agreeable as the continuous escort of a
jackdaw and a yak.

Poor Latimer is having a dreadful time. Apparently my ten thousand
pounds have vanished like a snowflake on the river of liabilities. How
he is to repay me he does not know. He wishes he had not yielded to
temptation and had allowed himself to be honestly hammered. Then
he could have taken his family to sing in the streets with a quiet
conscience.

"My dear fellow," said I through the telephone this morning. "What are
ten thousand pounds to me?"

I heard him gasp at the other end.

"But you're not a millionaire!"

"I am!" I cried triumphantly. And now I come to think of it, I spoke
truly. If a man reckons his capital as half a year's income, doubles it,
and works out the capital that such a yearly income represents, he is
the possessor of a mint of money.

"I am," I cried; "and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll settle five
thousand on Lucy and the children, so that they needn't accompany you
in your singing excursions. I shouldn't like them to catch cold, poor
dears, and ruin their voices."

In tones more than telephonically agonised he bade me not make a jest of
his misery. I nearly threw the receiver at the blockhead.

"I'm not jesting," I bawled; "I'm deadly serious. I knew Lucy before you
did, and I kissed her and she kissed me years before she knew of your
high existence; and if she had been a sensible woman she would have
married me instead of you--what? The first time you've heard of it? Of
course it is--and be decently thankful that you hear it now."

It is pleasant sometimes to tell the husbands