ough where he is now, well,
that wants knowing."

"What's the good of saying he's to come to supper, then?" inquired Mrs.
Raeburn.

"Only if he's about," explained Charlie. "If he's about, I'd like Jenny
here to meet him, because he was always a big hand at club concerts
twenty years ago, before he went to Africa. Arthur his name _was_."

"Oh, for goodness sake, stop your talking," said Mrs. Raeburn.

"And you can't ask Madame," announced Jenny, who was horrified by the
contemplation of a meeting between her father and the dancing-mistress.

"_And_ why not? _And_ why not? Will anybody here kindly tell me why
not?"

"Because you can't," said Jenny decidedly.

"Of course not. The child's quite right," Mrs. Raeburn corroborated.

"Well, of course, you all know better than the old man. But I daresay
she'd like to talk about Paris with your poor old dad."

However, notwithstanding the elision of all Mr. Raeburn's proposed
guests from the list of invitations, the supper did happen, and the
master of the house derived some consolation from being allowed to
preside at the head of his own table, if not sufficiently far removed
from his wife to enjoy himself absolutely. Mr. Vergoe, getting a very
old man now, came with Miss Lilli Vergoe, still a second-line girl at
the Orient Theater of Varieties, and Edie arrived from Brixton, where
she was learning to make dresses. Eileen Vaughan came, at Mrs. Raeburn's
instigation and much to Jenny's disgust, and Mr. Smithers, the new
lodger, a curly-headed young draper's assistant, tripped down from his
room upstairs. May, of course, was present, and Alfie sent a picture
postcard from Northampton, showing the after-effects of a party. This
was put upon the mantelpiece and greatly diverted the company. Mrs.
Purkiss was invited, and pasty-faced Percy and Claude and Mr. Purkiss
were also invited, but Mrs. Purkiss signalized her disapproval by taking
no notice of the invitation, thereby throwing Mrs. Raeburn into a
regular flutter of uncertainty. Nevertheless, she turned up ten minutes
late with both her offspring, to everybody's great disappointment and
Mrs. Raeburn's great anxiety, when she saw with what a will her nephews
settled down to the tinned tongue.

The supper passed off splendidly, and nearly everything was eaten and
praised. Mrs. Purkiss talked graciously to Mr. Smithers about the
prospects of haberdashery and the principles of window-dressing and,
somewhat tactlessly, ab