n me and, jerking a thumb, addressed Barbara.

"Why do you take him out without a muzzle? Now you've got sense. What
shall I do?"

Then Liosha superb and smiling sailed into the room.

I ought to have mentioned that Barbara had convened this meeting at the
boarding-house. The room into which Liosha sailed was the elegant
"_bonbonniere_" of a chamber known as the "boudoir." There was a great
deal of ribbon and frill and photograph frame and artful feminine touch
about it, which Liosha and, doubtless, many other inmates thought
mightily refined.

Liosha kissed Barbara and shook hands with Jaffery and me, bade us be
seated and put us at our ease with a social grace which could not have
been excelled by the admirable Mrs. Considine (now Jupp) herself. That
maligned lady had performed her duties during the past two years with
characteristic ability. Parenthetically I may remark that Liosha's
table-manners and formal demeanour were now irreproachable. Mrs.
Considine had also taken up the Western education of the child of twelve
at the point at which it had been arrested, and had brought Liosha's
information as to history, geography, politics and the world in general
to the standard of that of the average schoolgirl of fifteen. Again, she
had developed in our fair barbarian a natural taste in dress, curbing,
on her emergence from mourning, a fierce desire for apparel in primary
colours, and leading her onwards to an appreciation of suaver harmonies.
Again she had run her tactful hand over Liosha's stockyard vocabulary,
erasing words and expressions that might offend Queen's Gate and
substituting others that might charm; and she had done it with a touch
of humour not lost on Liosha, who had retained the sense of values in
which no child born and bred in Chicago can be deficient.

"I suppose you're all fussed to death about this marriage," she said
pleasantly. "Well, I couldn't help it."

"Of course not, dear," said Barbara.

"You might have given us a hint as to what was going on," said Jaffery.

"What good could you have done? In Albania if the General had interfered
with your plans, you might have shot him from behind a stone and
everyone except Mrs. Considine would have been happy; but I've been
taught you don't do things like that in South Kensington."

"Whoever wanted to shoot the chap?"

"I, for one," said Barbara. "What are we to do now?"

"Find another dragon," said Jaffery.

"But supposing I don't want an