such a smug-faced hypocrite.
It was a humiliating position. I had inflicted on him a most grievous
wrong, and here he was pleading for forgiveness. I could not pronounce
the words of pardon. He misinterpreted my silence.

"I know I've behaved rottenly to you since you've been back, but the
first step's always so difficult. You mustn't bear a grudge against me."

"My dear boy!" I cried, my hand on his shoulder, touched to the heart
by his simple generosity, "don't let us talk of grudges and forgiveness.
All I want to know is whether you're contented?"

"Contented?" he cried. "I should just think I am. I'm the happiest ass
that doesn't eat thistles!"

"Explain yourself, my dear Dale," said I, relapsing into my old manner.

"I'm going to marry Maisie Ellerton."

I took him by the arm and dragged him inside the box.

"Agatha," said I, "leave those confounded dogs for a moment and attend
to serious matters. This young man has not come up to see either of us,
but to obtain our congratulations. He's going to marry Maisie Ellerton."

"Tell me all about it," said Agatha intensely interested.

A load of responsibility rolled off my shoulders like Christian's pack.
I looked at the dog football match with the interest of a Sheffield
puddler at a Cup-tie, and clapped my hands.

An hour or so later after we had seen Agatha home, and Dale had
incidentally chucked Lord Essendale (the phrase is his own), we were
sitting over whisky and soda and cigars in my Victoria Street flat. The
ingenuousness of youth had insisted on this prolongation of our meeting.
He had a thousand things to tell me. They chiefly consisted in a
reiteration of the statement that he had been a rampant and unimagined
silly ass, and that Maisie, who knew the whole lunatic story, was a
brick, and a million times too good for him. When he entered my humble
lodging he looked round in a bewildered manner.

"Why on earth are you living in this mouse-trap?"

"Agatha calls it a pill-box. I call it a bird-cage. I live here, my dear
boy, because it is the utmost I can afford."

"Rot! I've been your private secretary and know what your income is."

I sighed heavily. I shall have to get a leaflet printed setting out the
causes that led to my change of fortune. Then I can hand it to such of
my friends as manifest surprise.

Indeed, I had grown so used to the story of my lamentable pursuit of
the eumoirous that I rattled it off mechanically after the manner of the