lmost a daily
feature of the column:

DEAREST: Tender loving wishes to my dear one. Only to be with you now
and always. None "fairer in my eyes." Your name is music to me. I
love you more than life itself, my own beautiful darling, my proud
sweetheart, my joy, my all! Jealous of everybody. Kiss your dear hands
for me. Love you only. Thine ever. --AYE.

Which, reflected West, was generous of Aye--at ten cents a word--and in
striking contrast to the penurious lover who wrote, farther along in the
column:

--loveu dearly; wantocu; longing; missu--

But those extremely personal notices ran not alone to love. Mystery,
too, was present, especially in the aquatic utterance:

DEFIANT MERMAID: Not mine. Alligators bitingu now. 'Tis well; delighted.
--FIRST FISH.

And the rather sanguinary suggestion:

DE Box: First round; tooth gone. Finale. You will FORGET ME NOT.

At this point West's strawberries arrived and even the Agony Column
could not hold his interest. When the last red berry was eaten he turned
back to read:

WATERLOO: Wed. 11:53 train. Lady who left in taxi and waved, care to
know gent, gray coat? --SINCERE.

Also the more dignified request put forward in:

GREAT CENTRAL: Gentleman who saw lady in bonnet 9 Monday morning in
Great Central Hotel lift would greatly value opportunity of obtaining
introduction.

This exhausted the joys of the Agony Column for the day, and West, like
the solid citizen he really was, took up the Times to discover what
might be the morning's news. A great deal of space was given to the
appointment of a new principal for Dulwich College. The affairs of the
heart, in which that charming creature, Gabrielle Ray, was at the moment
involved, likewise claimed attention. And in a quite unimportant corner,
in a most unimportant manner, it was related that Austria had sent an
ultimatum to Serbia. West had read part way through this stupid little
piece of news, when suddenly the Thunderer and all its works became an
uninteresting blur.

A girl stood just inside the door of the Carlton breakfast room.

Yes; he should have pondered that despatch from Vienna. But such a girl!
It adds nothing at all to say that her hair was a dull sort of gold; her
eyes violet. Many girls have been similarly blessed. It was her manner;
the sweet way she looked with those violet eyes through a battalion of
head waiters and resplendent managers; her air of being at home here
in the Carlton or anywhere