sation
in the melting-pot. Because that is what it will infallibly do unless I
get a cheque by next week. The printers have been showing a nasty spirit
for months."

"You don't follow. Listen. It's an understood thing, I take it, that
Uncle Tom foots the _Boudoir_ bills. If the bally sheet has been turning
the corner for two years, he must have got used to forking out by this
time. Well, simply ask him for the money to pay the printers."

"I did. Just before I went to Cannes."

"Wouldn't he give it to you?"

"Certainly he gave it to me. He brassed up like an officer and a
gentleman. That was the money I lost at baccarat."

"Oh? I didn't know that."

"There isn't much you do know."

A nephew's love made me overlook the slur.

"Tut!" I said.

"What did you say?"

"I said 'Tut!'"

"Say it once again, and I'll biff you where you stand. I've enough to
endure without being tutted at."

"Quite."

"Any tutting that's required, I'll attend to myself. And the same applies
to clicking the tongue, if you were thinking of doing that."

"Far from it."

"Good."

I stood awhile in thought. I was concerned to the core. My heart, if you
remember, had already bled once for Aunt Dahlia this evening. It now bled
again. I knew how deeply attached she was to this paper of hers. Seeing
it go down the drain would be for her like watching a loved child sink
for the third time in some pond or mere.

And there was no question that, unless carefully prepared for the touch,
Uncle Tom would see a hundred _Milady's Boudoirs_ go phut rather than
take the rap.

Then I saw how the thing could be handled. This aunt, I perceived, must
fall into line with my other clients. Tuppy Glossop was knocking off
dinner to melt Angela. Gussie Fink-Nottle was knocking off dinner to
impress the Bassett. Aunt Dahlia must knock off dinner to soften Uncle
Tom. For the beauty of this scheme of mine was that there was no limit to
the number of entrants. Come one, come all, the more the merrier, and
satisfaction guaranteed in every case.

"I've got it," I said. "There is only one course to pursue. Eat less
meat."

She looked at me in a pleading sort of way. I wouldn't swear that her
eyes were wet with unshed tears, but I rather think they were, certainly
she clasped her hands in piteous appeal.

"Must you drivel, Bertie? Won't you stop it just this once? Just for
tonight, to please Aunt Dahlia?"

"I'm not drivelling."

"I dare say that to a