or as he looked at his two companions, feathered, frilled
and bedraggled, who were walking beside him, he could scarcely
acknowledge even their probable reality here in the sun.

"I shan't drink hot whisky-and-lemon again in a hurry," vowed Daisy. "I
knew it was going to bring me bad luck when I said it tasted so funny."

"But you said your hat was going to be lucky," Michael pointed out.

"Yes, I've been properly sucked in over that," Daisy agreed.

"Nothing ever brings me luck," grumbled Dolly resentfully.

As Michael looked at the long retreating chin and down-drawn mouth he
was inclined to agree that nothing could invigorate this fatal
mournfulness with the prospect of good fortune.

"I reckon I'll go home and have a good lay down," said Daisy. "Are you
going to have dinner with me?" she asked, turning to Dolly.

"Dinner?" echoed Dolly. "Nice time to talk to anyone about their dinner,
when they've got the sick like I have! Dinner!"

They had reached Piccadilly Circus by now, and Michael wondered if he
might not put them into a cab and send them back to Guilford Street. He
found it embarrassing when the people slowly turned away from Swan and
Edgar's window to stare instead at him and his companions.

Daisy pressed him to come back with them, but he promised he would call
upon her very soon. Then he slipped into her hand the change from the
second five-pound note into which the law had broken.

"Is this for us?" she asked.

He nodded.

"You are a sport. Mind you come and see us. Come to tea. Doll's going to
live with me a bit now, aren't you, Doll?"

"I suppose so," said Doll.

Michael really admired the hospitality which was willing to shelter
this lugubrious girl, and as he contemplated her, looking in the
sunlight like a moist handkerchief, he had a fleeting sympathy with
Hungarian Dave.

When the girls had driven off, Michael recovered his ordinary appearance
by visiting a barber and a hosier. The effect of the shampoo was almost
to make him incredulous of the night's event, and he could not help
paying a visit to the Cafe d'Orange, to verify the alcove in which he
had sat. The entrance of the beerhall was closed, however, and he stood
for a moment like a person who passes a theater which the night before
he has seen glittering. As Michael was going out of the bar, he thought
he recognized a figure leaning over the counter. Yes, it was certainly
Meats. He went up and tapped him on the shoulder, a