Valentine." There was also a little pink note
with one blue forget-me-not printed at the top. It ran:

"DEAREST GUARDY,--I'm sorry this is such a mangy little valentine; I
couldn't go out to get it because I've got a beastly cold, so I asked
Jock, and the pig bought this. The satin is simply scrumptious. If you
don't come and see me in it some time soon, I shall come and show it
to you. I wish I had a moustache, because my top lip feels just like a
matchbox, but it's rather ripping having breakfast in bed. Mr. Pillin's
taking us to the theatre the day after to-morrow evening. Isn't it
nummy! I'm going to have rum and honey for my cold.

"Good-bye,

"Your PHYLLIS."

So this that quivered in his thick fingers, too insensitive to feel it,
was a valentine for him!

Forty years ago that young thing's grandmother had given him his last.
It made him out a very old chap! Forty years ago! Had that been
himself living then? And himself, who, as a youth came on the town
in 'forty-five? Not a thought, not a feeling the same! They said you
changed your body every seven years. The mind with it, too, perhaps!
Well, he had come to the last of his bodies, now! And that holy woman
had been urging him to take it to Bath, with her face as long as
a tea-tray, and some gammon from that doctor of his. Too full a
habit--dock his port--no alcohol--might go off in a coma any night!
Knock off not he! Rather die any day than turn tee-totaller! When a man
had nothing left in life except his dinner, his bottle, his cigar, and
the dreams they gave him--these doctors forsooth must want to cut them
off! No, no! Carpe diem! while you lived, get something out of it. And
now that he had made all the provision he could for those youngsters,
his life was no good to any one but himself; and the sooner he went off
the better, if he ceased to enjoy what there was left, or lost the power
to say: "I'll do this and that, and you be jiggered!" Keep a stiff lip
until you crashed, and then go clean! He sounded the bell beside him
twice-for Molly, not his man. And when the girl came in, and stood,
pretty in her print frock, her fluffy over-fine dark hair escaping from
under her cap, he gazed at her in silence.

"Yes, sirr?"

"Want to look at you, that's all."

"Oh I an' I'm not tidy, sirr."

"Never mind. Had your valentine?"

"No, sirr; who would send me one, then?"

"Haven't you a young man?"

"Well, I might. But he's over in my country.

"What