"Good God!" he cried, "I'd forgotten all about it."

"About what?" I asked.

"Why, it's the Palmers and the Grahams and the Hendersons. I've asked
them all over to lunch, and there's not a blessed thing on board but two
mutton chops and a pound of potatoes, and I've given the boy a holiday."

Another day I was lunching with him at the Junior Hogarth, when a man
named Hallyard, a mutual friend, strolled across to us.

"What are you fellows going to do this afternoon?" he asked, seating
himself the opposite side of the table.

"I'm going to stop here and write letters," I answered.

"Come with me if you want something to do," said McQuae. "I'm going to
drive Leena down to Richmond." ("Leena" was the young lady he
recollected being engaged to. It transpired afterwards that he was
engaged to three girls at the time. The other two he had forgotten all
about.) "It's a roomy seat at the back."

"Oh, all right," said Hallyard, and they went away together in a hansom.

An hour and a half later Hallyard walked into the smoking-room looking
depressed and worn, and flung himself into a chair.

"I thought you were going to Richmond with McQuae," I said.

"So did I," he answered.

"Had an accident?" I asked.

"Yes."

He was decidedly curt in his replies.

"Cart upset?" I continued.

"No, only me."

His grammar and his nerves seemed thoroughly shaken.

I waited for an explanation, and after a while he gave it.

"We got to Putney," he said, "with just an occasional run into a tram-
car, and were going up the hill, when suddenly he turned a corner. You
know his style at a corner--over the curb, across the road, and into the
opposite lamp-post. Of course, as a rule one is prepared for it, but I
never reckoned on his turning up there, and the first thing I recollect
is finding myself sitting in the middle of the street with a dozen fools
grinning at me.

"It takes a man a few minutes in such a case to think where he is and
what has happened, and when I got up they were some distance away. I ran
after them for a quarter of a mile, shouting at the top of my voice, and
accompanied by a mob of boys, all yelling like hell on a Bank Holiday.
But one might as well have tried to hail the dead, so I took the 'bus
back.

"They might have guessed what had happened," he added, "by the shifting
of the cart, if they'd had any sense. I'm not a light-weight."

He complained of soreness, and said he would go home. I su