," said grandma.

"An' a nice way they use it," sniffed Carry _sotto voce_.

As we set out to the meeting Miss Grosvenor mentioned to me that she
was endeavouring to find suitable speakers to address her association,
and asked did I know of any one. Here was an opening for a thrust in
the game of parry I was setting on foot between Dawn and Ernest
Breslaw.

"Ask my friend Mr Ernest to deliver an address: 'Women in Politics,'"
I said, "that is his particular subject. He is a most fluent speaker,
and loves speaking in public, nothing will delight him more."

"I'll ask him at once," said she.

This was as foundationless a fairy-tale as was ever spun, for Ernest
could not say two words in public upon any occasion. That he was
usually tendered a dinner and was called upon to make a speech, he
considered the drawback of wresting any athletic honours. Whether
women were in politics or the wash-house was a sociological abstrusity
beyond his line of thought, and not though it cost him all his fortune
to refuse could he have decently addressed any association even on
beloved sporting matters. Hence his consternation when Miss Grosvenor
approached him. At first he was nonplussed, and next thing, taking it
as a joke on my part, was highly amused. Miss Grosvenor, on her side,
thought he was joking, with the result that there was the liveliest
and most laughable conversation between them.

Dawn did not know the reason of it. She could only see that Ernest and
Miss Grosvenor were engrossed, and at first curious, a little later
she was annoyed with the former.

"I think," she whispered to me, "it's Mr Ernest you'll have to see
doesn't flirt with every girl he comes across."

"Perhaps he isn't flirting," I coolly replied.

"Not _now_, perhaps," she said pointedly; "perhaps he's in earnest
with one and practises with others."

Arrived at the hall, we found the women swarming around Walker like
bees.

"Good Lord! Look what Les. has let himself in for," laughed Ernest; "I
wouldn't stand in his shoes for a tenner."

"Go on! Surely you too are partial to ladies?"

"Yes; but--"

"But there must be reason in everythink," I quoted. He laughed.

"Yes; and reason in this sort of thing to suit my taste would be a
small medium. But what a fine old sport the old dame Clay would have
made--no danger of her not standing up to a mauling or baulking at any
of her fences, eh?"

Dawn would not look at Ernest after the meeting and depu