m town to-morrow
morning."

"Oh, how very kind you are!" Bertram exclaimed, looking down at her
gratefully. "I'm sure I don't know what I should ever have done in this
crisis without you."

He said it with a warmth which was certainly unconventional. Frida
coloured and looked embarrassed. There was no denying he was certainly a
most strange and untrammelled person.

"And if I might venture on a hint," Philip put in, with a hasty glance
at his companion's extremely unsabbatical costume, "it would be that
you shouldn't try to go out much to-day in that suit you're wearing; it
looks peculiar, don't you know, and might attract attention."

"Oh, is that a taboo too?" the stranger put in quickly, with an anxious
air. "Now, that's awfully kind of you. But it's curious, as well; for
two or three people passed my window last night, all Englishmen, as
I judged, and all with suits almost exactly like this one--which was
copied, as I told you, from an English model."

"Last night; oh, yes," Philip answered. "Last night was Saturday;
that makes all the difference. The suit's right enough in its way, of
course,--very neat and gentlemanly; but NOT for Sunday. You're expected
on Sundays to put on a black coat and waistcoat, you know, like the ones
I'm wearing."

Bertram's countenance fell. "And if I'm seen in the street like this,"
he asked, "will they do anything to me? Will the guardians of the
peace--the police, I mean--arrest me?"

Frida laughed a bright little laugh of genuine amusement.

"Oh, dear, no," she said merrily; "it isn't an affair of police at all;
not so serious as that: it's only a matter of respectability."

"I see," Bertram answered. "Respectability's a religious or popular, not
an official or governmental, taboo. I quite understand you. But those
are often the most dangerous sort. Will the people in the street, who
adore Respectability, be likely to attack me or mob me for disrespect to
their fetich?"

"Certainly not," Frida replied, flushing up. He seemed to be carrying
a joke too far. "This is a free country. Everybody wears and eats and
drinks just what he pleases."

"Well, that's all very interesting to me," the Alien went on with a
charming smile, that disarmed her indignation; "for I've come here on
purpose to collect facts and notes about English taboos and similar
observances. I'm Secretary of a Nomological Society at home, which is
interested in pagodas, topes, and joss-houses; and I've been