is traveled man with interest.

"It beats me," he said, wonderingly. "What do you want to leg it
about the world like that for? What's the trouble? Why don't you
stay where the girl is?"

"I don't know where she is."

"Don't know?"

"She disappeared."

"Where did you see her last?" asked his lordship, as if Molly were a
mislaid penknife.

"New York."

"But how do you mean, disappeared? Don't you know her address?"

"I don't even know her name."

"But dash it all, I say, I mean! Have you ever spoken to her?"

"Only once. It's rather a complicated story. At any rate, she's
gone."

Lord Dreever said that it was a rum business. Jimmy conceded the
point.

"Seems to me," said his lordship, "we're both in the cart."

"What's your trouble?"

Lord Dreever hesitated.

"Oh, well, it's only that I want to marry one girl, and my uncle's
dead set on my marrying another."

"Are you afraid of hurting your uncle's feelings?"

"It's not so much hurting his feelings. It's--oh, well, it's too
long to tell now. I think I'll be getting home. I'm staying at our
place in Eaton Square."

"How are you going? If you'll walk, I'll come some of the way with
you."

"Right you are. Let's be pushing along, shall we?"

They turned up into the Strand, and through Trafalgar Square into
Piccadilly. Piccadilly has a restful aspect in the small hours. Some
men were cleaning the road with water from a long hose. The swishing
of the torrent on the parched wood was musical.

Just beyond the gate of Hyde Park, to the right of the road, stands
a cabmen's shelter. Conversation and emotion had made Lord Dreever
thirsty. He suggested coffee as a suitable conclusion to the night's
revels.

"I often go in here when I'm up in town," he said. "The cabbies
don't mind. They're sportsmen."

The shelter was nearly full when they opened the door. It was very
warm inside. A cabman gets so much fresh air in the exercise of his
professional duties that he is apt to avoid it in private life. The
air was heavy with conflicting scents. Fried onions seemed to be
having the best of the struggle for the moment, though plug tobacco
competed gallantly. A keenly analytical nose might also have
detected the presence of steak and coffee.

A dispute seemed to be in progress as they entered.

"You don't wish you was in Russher," said a voice.

"Yus, I do wish I wos in Russher," retorted a shriveled mummy of a
cabman, who was blowing patiently at a sauc