leman. After a long hunt for the mislaid keys, in which the
harried staff of The Plough took part, he made up his mind that he must
appear before her, with all apologies, in the tweed suit he was
wearing. It was a bitter thought, for in a tweed suit he could not
really feel a conquering hero after eight o'clock at night.

Then he put his foot into a dress-boot full of cold water. It was a
good water-tight boot; and it had faithfully retained all of the water
its lining had not soaked up. The gallant officer said a good deal
about its retentive properties to the mute boot.

At dinner be learned from Mrs. Pittaway that the obliging Terror had
himself fetched the cigarette-case from his bedroom. A flash of
intuition connected the Terror with the watered boot; and he begged
her, with loud acerbity, never again to let any one--any one!!--enter
his bedroom. Mrs. Pittaway objected that slops could not be emptied,
or beds made without human intervention. He begged her, not perhaps
unreasonably, not to talk like a fool; and she liked him none the
better for his directness.

Food always soothed him; and he rose from his dinner in better spirits.
As he rose from it, the Terror, standing among the overarching trees
which made the muddy patch in the lane so dark, was drawing a
clothes-line tight. It ran through the hedge that hid him to the hedge
on the other side of the lane. There it was fastened to a stout stake;
and he was fastening it to the lowest rail of a post and rails. At its
tightest it rose a foot above the roadway just at the beginning of the
mud-patch. It was at its tightest.

Heartened by his dinner and two extra whiskies and sodas, Captain
Baster set out for Colet House at a brisk pace. As he moved through
the bracing autumn air, his spirits rose yet higher; that night--that
very night he would crown Mrs. Dangerfield's devotion with his avowal
of an answering passion. He pressed forward swiftly like a conqueror;
and like a conqueror he whistled. Then he found the clothes-line,
suddenly, pitched forward and fell, not heavily, for the mud was thick,
but sprawling. He rose, oozy and dripping, took a long breath, and the
welkin shuddered as it rang.

The Terror did not shudder; he was going home like the wind.

Having sent Erebus to bed at a few minutes to nine Mrs. Dangerfield
waited restlessly for her tardy guest, her charming face still set in a
troubled frown. Her woman's instinct assured her th