tion. A fat little old lady was
standing at the door of a cab, helping the driver to extricate what
seemed an exact duplicate of herself: it would have been no easy task to
decide which was the fatter, or which looked the more good-humoured of
the two sisters.

"I tell you the cab-door isn't half wide enough!" she repeated, as her
sister finally emerged, somewhat after the fashion of a pellet from a
pop-gun, and she turned to appeal to Clara. "Is it, dear?" she said,
trying hard to bring a frown into a face that dimpled all over with
smiles.

"Some folks is too wide for 'em," growled the cab-driver.

[Illustration: "I TELL YOU THE CAB-DOOR ISN'T HALF WIDE ENOUGH!"]

"Don't provoke me, man!" cried the little old lady, in what she meant
for a tempest of fury. "Say another word and I'll put you into the
County Court, and sue you for a _Habeas Corpus_!" The cabman touched his
hat, and marched off, grinning.

"Nothing like a little Law to cow the ruffians, my dear!" she remarked
confidentially to Clara. "You saw how he quailed when I mentioned the
_Habeas Corpus_? Not that I've any idea what it means, but it sounds
very grand, doesn't it?"

"It's very provoking," Clara replied, a little vaguely.

"Very!" the little old lady eagerly repeated. "And we're very much
provoked indeed. Aren't we, sister?"

"I never was so provoked in all my life!" the fatter sister assented,
radiantly.

By this time Clara had recognised her picture-gallery acquaintances,
and, drawing her aunt aside, she hastily whispered her reminiscences. "I
met them first in the Royal Academy--and they were very kind to me--and
they were lunching at the next table to us, just now, you know--and they
tried to help me to find the picture I wanted--and I'm sure they're dear
old things!"

"Friends of yours, are they?" said Mad Mathesis. "Well, I like their
looks. You can be civil to them, while I get the tickets. But do try and
arrange your ideas a little more chronologically!"

And so it came to pass that the four ladies found themselves seated side
by side on the same bench waiting for the train, and chatting as if they
had known one another for years.

"Now this I call quite a remarkable coincidence!" exclaimed the smaller
and more talkative of the two sisters--the one whose legal knowledge had
annihilated the cab-driver. "Not only that we should be waiting for the
same train, and at the same station--_that_ would be curious enough--but
actually on