f fish, jumped up and began to
dance. _Of course_ several fish-bones flew down his throat, and while
he was choking he did such fearful and wonderful things that the whole
room, not dreaming the poor dear was at his _dernier soupir_, broke
out clapping and shouting and then imitated him, and by the time
Chippy felt better he found himself famous and everybody doing the
Peace Leap, which has completely cut out the Jazz-stagger, the Wolf's
Prowl and everything else.

Oh, my dearest, who _do_ you think are among the crowd of married
people who're going to celebrate peace by dissolving partnership? The
Algy Mallowdenes! Our prize couple! The _flitchiest_ of Dunmow Flitch
pairs! The _turtlest_ of turtle--doves! Whenever people spoke of
marriage as played out other people always weighed in with, "Well, but
look at the Algy Mallowdenes."

They married on war-bread and Government cheese and kisses
(unrationed). Seriously, though, _m'amie_, I believe they'd
scarcely anything beyond his two thousand pounds a year as Permanent
Irremovable Assistant Under-Secretary at the No-Use-Coming-Here
Office. Certainly an "official residence" and a staff of servants were
allowed 'em, but when poor Lallie asked to have a ball-room built, and
Algy said he simply _must_ have a billiard-room and smoke-room added,
one of those fearful red-flag creatures got up in the House just
as the money was going to be voted and made such an uproar that the
matter was dropped.

And then, having heaps of spare time at the No-Use-Coming-Here Office,
Algy began to write novels and found himself at once. You've read some
of them, of course? Life with a big L, my dear. Every kind of world
while you wait, the upper, the under, and the half. Lallie was
very glad of the money that came rolling in, but I believe she said
wistfully, "How does my gentle quiet Algy know so much about
this, that and the other?" And her gentle quiet Algy made answer:
"Intuition, dear; imagination; the novelist's temperament."

By-and-by, however, she began to hear of his being seen at the Umpty
Club and Gaston's, chatting with Pearl Preston (one of those people,
you know, Daphne, who're immensely talked about but never mentioned).
And then a "certain liveliness" set in at the official residence of
the Permanent Irremovable Assistant Under-Secretary.

"You silly little goosey!" said Algy; "don't you see that it's not as
a man who admires her but as a novelist who's studying her that I