his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to
being more than twenty-two.)

The Colonel went to the colour of a fig that has attained great ripeness,
and Reginald, ignoring my efforts to intercept him, glided away to
another part of the lawn. I found him a few minutes later happily
engaged in teaching the youngest Rampage boy the approved theory of
mixing absinthe, within full earshot of his mother. Mrs. Rampage
occupies a prominent place in local Temperance movements.

As soon as I had broken up this unpromising _tete-a-tete_ and settled
Reginald where he could watch the croquet players losing their tempers, I
wandered off to find my hostess and renew the kitten negotiations at the
point where they had been interrupted. I did not succeed in running her
down at once, and eventually it was Mrs. McKillop who sought me out, and
her conversation was not of kittens.

"Your cousin is discussing _Zaza_ with the Archdeacon's wife; at least,
he is discussing, she is ordering her carriage."

She spoke in the dry, staccato tone of one who repeats a French exercise,
and I knew that as far as Millie McKillop was concerned, Wumples was
devoted to a lifelong celibacy.

"If you don't mind," I said hurriedly, "I think we'd like our carriage
ordered too," and I made a forced march in the direction of the croquet-
ground.

I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the
war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable
chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after
it had desolated entire villages. The Archdeacon's wife was buttoning up
her gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to behold. I
shall have to treble my subscription to her Cheerful Sunday Evenings Fund
before I dare set foot in her house again.

At that particular moment the croquet players finished their game, which
had been going on without a symptom of finality during the whole
afternoon. Why, I ask, should it have stopped precisely when a counter-
attraction was so necessary? Everyone seemed to drift towards the area
of disturbance, of which the chairs of the Archdeacon's wife and Reginald
formed the storm-centre. Conversation flagged, and there settled upon
the company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn--when your
neighbours don't happen to keep poultry.

"What did the Caspian Sea?" asked Reginald, with appalling suddenness.

There were symptoms of a s