olesale a thief of time as they
wished him to be.

"Now, about those two unique dahlias of yours," began the Colonel; "you
really must allow me to come and see them."

"Delighted, sir. Any time that may be convenient to you. Come and spend
a week with me."

"You are very kind. I should say to-morrow if, literally, any time would
do," laughed the Colonel; "but I think even you cannot induce dahlias to
flower before July."

"Well, no. Of course, my 'anytime' presupposed these natural limits,"
said the aeronaut, aloud.

"I fancied they were spring flowers," said the aeronaut in a
stage-aside. "So I can go scot-free until July. I must marry her before
then."

Colonel Currie was on the point of launching well out into his favourite
waters--in which case the Providence of so fatuous a trifler as Reginald
Hampton must surely have deserted him--when a certain peculiarity in his
guest's face arrested his attention. He gazed fixedly at him for a few
moments, then frowned ominously.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but you have the family nose. I have never seen
that peculiar dent in the middle in any but a Currie nose. Is it
possible--"

"I also beg your pardon, Colonel," responded the balloonist, following a
sudden inspiration; "but before answering your question, may I ask if
you are really as devoted to flowers as you seem to be?"

"I am indeed. They are the passion of my life," said Colonel Currie,
still gazing perplexedly at his companion's nasal hallmark.

"For my part, I can never forgive a florist--a true florist--who can
find it in his heart to put other--other considerations first. If a man
told me that he possessed a blue dahlia, for instance, I would go and
see that man in the teeth of gatling guns."

"So would I. Grape-shot is a matter of no consequence by comparison."

"If the man had relations in the house whom it made my head ache to
meet, I would still go. Nothing in the world, sir, ought to stand in the
way of a blue dahlia."

"Nothing," responded the Colonel, forgetting everything else in a sudden
fervour of sympathetic enthusiasm.

"You are quite convinced of that?"

"Quite. How can you doubt me?"

The aeronaut paused, and then planted this shot squarely in the
Colonel's astonished person.

"Then, uncle, you won't mind my saying that I am Reginald Hampton, and
that it will be necessary for you to see the blue dahlia _and_ your
sister in conjunction."

The Colonel grew purple, then white; he s