od news to my companion.

"Splendid!" she said.

"You don't mind waiting?"

"I should have waited for you, anyway. Now go and retrieve Pomfret;
you've just got time."

To the two husbandmen I found in the bar, the idea of earning twopence
a minute for a quarter of an hour appealed so strongly that they did
not wait to finish the ale I had ordered for them, and the feats of
strength they performed in persuading Pomfret to return to the path
from which he had strayed made me ache all over. The result was that
the car was in the yard before the duck had left the oven, and I was
able to have a wash at the pump before luncheon was served. Pomfret
had come off very lightly, on the whole. Except for the broken wing, a
fair complement of scratches, and the total wreck of one of the lamps,
he seemed to have taken no hurt.

So it happened that Alice and I lunched together. I think we were both
glad of the food. When it was over, I lighted her cigarette, and drew
her attention to the oleograph, which pictured Gideon's astonishment at
the condition of what, on examination, proved to be a large fleece.
Out of perspective in the background a youth staggered under a pile of
first-fruits.

"No wayside inn parlour is complete without one such picture," said I.
"As a rule, we are misled about Moses. This, however, is of a later
school. Besides, this is really something out of the common."

"Why?"

"Well, that's not Gideon really, but Garrick as Gideon. Very rare.
And that with the first-fruits is Kean as--

"Yes?"

"As Ever," I went on hurriedly; "Gideon's great pal, you know, brother
of Always. And Mrs. Siddons--"

"Who made her debut six years after Garrick's farewell...And you're all
wrong about Kean. But don't let me stop you. Which is Nell Gwynne?"

"Nelly? Ah, no, she isn't in the picture. But she stopped here
once--for lunch--quite by chance and unattended, save for a poor fool
she had found in the forest. Hunting she had been, and had lost her
horse, and he brought her on her way on a pillion. Be sure he rode
with his chin on his shoulder all the time. She never said who she
was, but he knew her for some great lady, for all his dullness. Ah,
Nell, you--she was very sweet to him: let him see the stars in her
eyes, let him mark the blue cloud of her hair, suffered him to sit by
her side at their meal, gave him of her fair company, and--and, like
them all, he loved her. All the time, too--from the