ll the morning."

Archie had placed him now. He had not seen General Mannister for several
years--not, indeed, since the days when he used to meet him at the home
of young Lord Seacliff, his nephew. Archie had been at Eton and Oxford
with Seacliff, and had often visited him in the Long Vacation.

"Halloa, General! What ho, what ho! What on earth are you doing over
here?"

"Let's get out of this crush, my boy." General Mannister steered Archie
into a side-street, "That's better." He cleared his throat once or
twice, as if embarrassed. "I've brought Seacliff over," he said,
finally.

"Dear old Squiffy here? Oh, I say! Great work!"

General Mannister did not seem to share his enthusiasm. He looked like a
horse with a secret sorrow. He coughed three times, like a horse who, in
addition to a secret sorrow, had contracted asthma.

"You will find Seacliff changed," he said. "Let me see, how long is it
since you and he met?"

Archie reflected.

"I was demobbed just about a year ago. I saw him in Paris about a year
before that. The old egg got a bit of shrapnel in his foot or something,
didn't he? Anyhow, I remember he was sent home."

"His foot is perfectly well again now. But, unfortunately, the enforced
inaction led to disastrous results. You recollect, no doubt, that
Seacliff always had a--a tendency;--a--a weakness--it was a family
failing--"

"Mopping it up, do you mean? Shifting it? Looking on the jolly old stuff
when it was red and what not, what?"

"Exactly."

Archie nodded.

"Dear old Squiffy was always rather-a lad for the wassail-bowl. When I
met him in Paris, I remember, he was quite tolerably blotto."

"Precisely. And the failing has, I regret to say, grown on him since he
returned from the war. My poor sister was extremely worried. In fact, to
cut a long story short, I induced him to accompany me to America. I am
attached to the British Legation in Washington now, you know."

"Oh, really?"

"I wished Seacliff to come with me to Washington, but he insists on
remaining in New York. He stated specifically that the thought of living
in Washington gave him the--what was the expression he used?"

"The pip?"

"The pip. Precisely."

"But what was the idea of bringing him to America?"

"This admirable Prohibition enactment has rendered America--to my
mind--the ideal place for a young man of his views." The General looked
at his watch. "It is most fortunate that I happened to run into you, my
dea