"If you say so," said the melancholy one, "it must be so."

"I was telling Cruden he might join us this winter."

"Very well," said the other, resignedly; "but where are you going to
meet? Mrs Megson has gone away, and we've no reader."

"Bother you, Booms, for always spotting difficulties in a thing. You
see," added he, to Horace, "we used to meet at a good lady's house who
kept a day school. She let us go there one evening a week, and read
aloud to us, for us to take it down in shorthand. She's gone now, bad
luck to her, and the worst of it is we're bound to get a lady to take us
in, as we've got ladies in our class, you see."

At the mention of ladies Booms groaned deeply.

"Why, I tell you what," said Horace, struck by a brilliant idea. "What
should you say to my mother? I think she would be delighted; and if you
want a good reader aloud, she's the very woman for you."

Waterford clapped his friend enthusiastically on the back.

"You're a trump, Cruden, to lend us your mother; isn't he, Booms?"

"Oh yes," said Booms. "I've seen her, and--" here he appeared to
undergo a mental struggle--"I like her."

"At any rate, I'll sound her on the matter. By the way, she'll want to
know who the ladies are."

"It'll only be one this winter, I'm afraid," said Waterford, "as the
Megsons have gone. It's a Miss Crisp, Cruden, a friend of Booms's,
who--"

"Whom I met the other night at the Shucklefords'?" said Horace.

Booms answered the question with such an agonised sigh that both his
companions burst out laughing.

"Dear old Booms can tell you more about her than I can," said Waterford.
"All I know is she's a very nice girl indeed."

"I agree with you," said Horace; "I'm sure she is. You think so too,
don't you, Booms?"

"You don't know what I think," said Booms; which was very true.

One difficulty still remained, and this appeared to trouble Horace
considerably.

He did not like to refer to it as long as the melancholy masher was
present, but as soon as he had gone in to fetch the papers, Horace
inquired of his friend,--

"I say, Waterford, do you mean to say he chooses the very night he
hasn't got a high collar to--"

"Hush!" cried Waterford, mysteriously, "it's a sore question with him;
but _he couldn't write if he had one_. We never mention it, though."

It is needless to say Mrs Cruden fell in most cordially with the new
proposal. She needed little persuasion to induce her to agree to a p