He began to lay the table for luncheon.

"I say, John," began Hughie awkwardly. "Aye?"

"There's a thing I want to speak to you about. I have been losing money lately, and I have to give up some luxuries I can't afford. I-I am afraid you are one of them. I have always regarded a man-servant as an extravagance," he went on with a rush, "and I must ask you to look about for another place. Take your time, of course, and don't leave me till you are suited. I shall be glad to give you a character, and all that. You understand?”

There was a silence, while Mr Goble folded a napkin. Then he replied:

"Fine!" Then he added, after a pause, "So you've been lossin' your money? Aye! Aha! Mphm!"

"Yes. I'm desperately sorry," said Hughie penitently. "I don't want to lose you. Perhaps it will only be tempor

"You'll no be daen' that yet

Hughie looked down out of the window.

"So it is," he said hastily. "I'll show them up, John. You go on with your work."

He was across and out of the room in three strides, and could be heard descending the stairs kangaroo fashion.

Mr John Goble breathed

heavily into a spoon and rubbed it with the point of his elbow.

"I wunner wha his visitors is," he mused caustically. "Of course he always opens the door himsel' tae all his visitors! Of course I dinna ken wha she is! Oh, no!"

He wagged his head in a broken-hearted manner, and gave vent to a depressing sound which a brother Scot would have recognised as a chuckle of intense amusement.

To him entered Miss Ursula Harbord. She wore pince-nez and a sage-green costume of some art fabric-one of the numerous crimes committed in the name of Liberty. She was Joan Gaymer's latest fad; and under her persuasive tutelage Joan was beginning to learn that the men who all her life had served her slightest whim were at once monsters of duplicity and brainless idiots; and that, given a few more fervid and ungrammatical articles in The New Woman, women

would shortly come to their own and march in the van of civilisation, and that people like Ursula Harbord would march in the van of the women.

Pending this glorious destiny, Miss Harbord acted as unsettler-in-general of Joan's domestic instincts, and worried Hughie considerably.

She was followed into the room by Joan; very much the Joan of last summer, if we make allowances for the distressing appearance presented by a young woman of considerable personal attractions who is compelled by Fashion's decree, for this season at any rate, to obscure her features under a hat which looks like an unsuccessful compromise between a waste-paper basket and a dish-cover.

marked Miss Harbord freezingly.

"I didn't notice it," said Hughie. "He was quite tractable. Apparently you engaged him at Hyde Park Terrace and stopped at two shops on the way.'

"That is correct."

"And you gave him one and threepence for a drive of over two miles and a stop of about ten minutes."

"His legal fare. We employed him for exactly half an hour."

"But did you tell him that you were engaging him by the hour?"

"Of course not! They simply crawl if you do. You might have known that, Mr Marrable."

"Well, it's all right now," interposed Joan cheerfully.

"Mr Marrable," persisted Miss Harbord, "I fear you were weak with him. How much did you give him?"

Nothing out of the way," said Hughie uneasily. "You'll stay to lunch, won't you? I am expecting the Leroys and D'Arcy. We can all go on to a matinée afterwards."

Miss Harbord assumed the expression of one who is not to be won over by fair words, and endeavoured to catch Miss Gaymer's eye-an enterprise which failed signally, as the latter lady rose from her seat and strolled to the window.

"Mr Marrable," began Miss Harbord, taking up her parable single-handed, "Joan wishes to have a chat with you about money matters."

VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MCXXVII.

"No I don't, Hughie," said Miss Gaymer promptly, over her shoulder.

"Well then, dear," said Miss Harbord calmly, "you ought to. Women leave these things to men far too much as it is. Joan has an old-fashioned notion," she added to Hughie, "that it is not quite nice for girls to know anything about money-matters: hence her reluctance. However, I will conduct her case for her."

Miss Harbord crossed her legs, threw herself back in her chair in a manner which demonstrated most conclusively her contempt for appearances and feminine ideas of decorum, and began :

"Tell me, Mr Marrable, what interest does Joan get on her money?"

Hughie gaped feebly. Halfan-hour ago he had put Mr Lance Gaymer to the door for an almost precisely similar question. But Lance Gaymer was a man, and Miss Harbord, conceal the fact as she might, was a woman; and Hughie's old helplessness paralysed him

ing things for yourself, and so be spared the indignity-I suppose you consider it an indignity?-of having to be advised by a woman.”

The afflicted Hughie murmured something about it being a pleasure.

"Now here," continued Miss Harbord, slapping the newspaper as an East-End butcher slaps the last two-eyed steak at his Saturday night auction, "I have the report of the halfyearly meeting of The International Trading Company, Limited, where a dividend of seven per cent was declared, making a dividend on the whole year of fourteen per cent. Now do you see what I-what Joan wants?"

"Hughie," said Joan, who was making a tour of inspection of the room, "where did you get this lovely leopard-skin? Have I seen it before?"

"Shot it, Joey. I beg your pardon, Miss Harbord?" "Do you what Joan wants you to do?" repeated that financial Amazon.

"Afraid I don't, quite. I'll get on to it in a minute, though," replied the docile Hughie.

Surely, the whole thing is quite clear! You must take Joan's capital out of whatever it is in and buy shares in The International Trading Company with it. And be sure you order preference shares, Mr Marrable. They are the best sort to get. That is all; but I ought not to have to point these things out to you."

Hughie surveyed his preceptress in an undecided fashion.

"Of course," continued the unlearned Miss Gaymer, "to people like Ursula these things are as easy as falling off a log, but for you and me, who know nothing about business, they're pretty stiff to tackle, aren't they?"

Quite so," agreed Hughie meekly. "But look here, Joey," he continued, "are you really in want of money?"

“Of course she is!" said Miss Harbord, suddenly resuming the offensive.

“I could do with a few more frocks, Hughie," said Miss Gaymer wistfully, "if it wouldn't be a bother to change those investments about a bit, as Ursula advises. Still, if it can't be done, we'll say no more about it."

"Will another hundred ayear be any use to you?" said Hughie suddenly.

"Oh, Hughie, I should think

Can it be managed without a fearful upset?" cried Miss Gaymer, her eyes already brightening over a vista of blouse - lengths and doublewidths.

"Yes," said Hughie shortly. "I'll-I'll make the necessary changes and see that the cash is paid into your banking

account."

"You dear!" said Miss Gaymer, with sincerity.

"A hundred pounds? It might be more!" observed the daughter of the horse-leech on the sofa. Fourteen per cent still rankled in her Napoleonic brain.

Hughie orossed to the writ

66

Capt'n Leroy!" announced Mr Goble's voice in the doorway.

That easy-going paladin entered the room, and intimated that his wife had sent him along to say that she would arrive in ten minutes.

"That means twenty," said Joan. "Ursula, we have just time to run round and see that hat we thought we'd better not decide about until we had heard from Hughie about the thing we came to see him about. Now I can try it on with a clear conscience. Back directly, Hughie!"

She flitted out, the prospective hundred pounds obviously burning a hole in her pocket (or wherever woman in the present era of fashion keeps her money), followed by Miss Harbord.

Hughie turned to Leroy.

"Take a cigarette, old man,' he said, "and sit down with a glass of sherry while I do myself up for lunch. Been down at Putney."

Leroy obeyed. When Hughie returned from his bedroom a quarter of an hour later he found that Mrs Leroy had arrived. She and her husband were engaged in a low-toned conversation, which they broke off rather abruptly on their host's entrance.

Hughie shook hands, and sweeping some newspapers off the sofa, offered his latestarrived guest a seat.

"No, thanks, Hughie," said Mrs Leroy; "I prefer to look out of the window."