poor old daddy
hasn't got one."

"I call that silly," replied my daughter. "Uncle Jaffery, have you got
one?"

"No," said he, "You have to be born, like Uncle Adrian, with a golden
pen in your mouth."

The lucky advent of the Archangel Gabriel, with a grin on his face and a
doll in his mouth--the Archangel Gabriel, commonly known as Gabs, and so
termed on account of his archi-angelic disposition, a hideous mongrel
with a white patch over one eye and a brown patch over the other, with
the nose of a collie and the legs of a Great Dane and the tail of a
fox-terrier, whose mongreldom, however, Adrian repudiated by the bold
assertion that he was a Zanzibar bloodhound--the lucky advent of this
pampered and over-affectionate quadruped directed Susan's mind from the
somewhat difficult conversation. She ran off, forthwith, to the rescue
or her doll; but later (I heard) her nurse was sore put to it to explain
the mystery of the golden pen.

"So much for Adrian. I'm tired of the auriferous person," said I, waving
a hand. "What about yourself? What about the dynamic widow?"

"Oh, damn the dynamic widow," he replied, corrugating his serene and
sunburnt forehead. "I've come down here to forget her. I'll tell you
about her later." Then he grinned, in his silly, familiar way, showing
two rows of astonishingly white, strong teeth, between the hair on lip
and chin.

"Well," said I, "at any rate give some account of yourself. What were
you doing in Albania, for instance?"

"Prospecting," said he.

"In what--gold, coal, iron?"

"War," said he. "There's going to be a hell of a bust-up one of these
days--and one of these days very soon--in the Balkans. From Scutari to
Salonica to Rodosto, the whole blooming triangle--it's going to be a
battlefield. The war correspondent who goes out there not knowing his
ground will be a silly ass. The slim statesman like me won't. See? So
poor old Prescott--you must know Prescott of Reuter's?--anyhow that was
the chap--poor old Prescott and I went out exploring. When he pegged out
with enteric I hadn't finished, so I dumped his widow down at Cettinje
where I have some pals, and started out again on my own. That's all."

He filled another pint tumbler with the iced liquid (one always had to
provide largely for Jaffery's needs) and poured it down his throat.

"I don't call that a very picturesque account of your adventures," said
Adrian.

Jaffery grinned. "I'll tell you all sorts of funny thi