to the
smoking-room, where I found the cigarettes so badly rolled that they
would not keep alight. After a little I remembered that I wanted to see
Myddleton Finch about an improved saddle of which a friend of his has
the patent. He was in the newsroom, and, having questioned him about the
saddle, I said:

"By the way, what is this story about your swearing at one of the
waiters?"

"You mean about his swearing at me," Myddleton Finch replied, reddening.

"I am glad that was it," I said; "for I could not believe you guilty of
such bad form."

"If I did swear--" he was beginning, but I went on:

"The version which has reached me was that you swore at him, and he
repeated the word. I heard he was to be dismissed and you reprimanded."

"Who told you that?" asked Myddleton Finch, who is a timid man.

"I forget; it is club talk," I replied, lightly. "But of course the
committee will take your word. The waiter, whichever one he is, richly
deserves his dismissal for insulting you without provocation."

Then our talk returned to the saddle, but Myddleton Finch was
abstracted, and presently he said:

"Do you know, I fancy I was wrong in thinking that the waiter swore at
me, and I'll withdraw my charge to-morrow."

Myddleton Finch then left me, and, sitting alone, I realised that I
had been doing William a service. To some slight extent I may have
intentionally helped him to retain his place in the club, and I now see
the reason, which was that he alone knows precisely to what extent I
like my claret heated.

For a mere second I remembered William's remark that he should not
be able to see the girl Jenny from the library windows. Then this
recollection drove from my head that I had only dined in the sense that
my dinner-bill was paid. Returning to the dining-room, I happened to
take my chair at the window, and while I was eating a deviled kidney
I saw in the street the girl whose nods had such an absurd effect on
William.

The children of the poor are as thoughtless as their parents, and this
Jenny did not sign to the windows in the hope that William might see
her, though she could not see him. Her face, which was disgracefully
dirty, bore doubt and dismay on it, but whether she brought good news
it would not tell. Somehow I had expected her to signal when she saw
me, and, though her message could not interest me, I was in the mood in
which one is irritated at that not taking place which he is awaiting.
Ultimately