oughtful promenade, and to the building of
air-castles of which the other occupant was Little Miss Grouch, when he
became aware of a prospective head-on collision. He side-stepped. The
approaching individual did the same. He sheered off to port. The other
followed. In desperation he made a plunge to starboard and was checked
at the rail by the pursuer.

"I wish to speak to you," announced a cold and lofty voice.

The Tyro emerged from his glorious abstraction, to find himself
confronted by a middle-aged lady with violent pretensions to youth,
mainly artificial. Some practitioners of the toilet-table paint in the
manner of Sargent; others follow the school of Cecilia Beaux; but this
lady's color-scheme was unmistakably that of Turner in his most
expansive mood of sunset, burning ships, and volcanic eruptions.

By way of compensation, she wore an air of curdled virtue, and carried
her nose at such an angle that one expected to see her at any moment set
the handle of her lorgnette on the tip thereof, and oblige the company
with a few unparalleled feats of balancing.

Surprise held the Tyro's tongue in leash for the moment. Then he came
to. Here was another unexpected lady evidently relying upon that tricky
memory of his. Very well: this time it should not betray him!

"How do you do?" he said, seizing her hand and shaking it warmly. "I'm
so glad to see you again."

She withdrew the captured member indignantly. "Again? Where have you
ever seen me before?" she demanded.

"Just what I was trying to think," murmured the Tyro. "Where _have_ I
seen you?"

The colorful lady lifted her glasses and her nose at one and the same
moment. "I am Mrs. Denyse," she informed him. "Mrs. Charlton Denyse. You
may know the name."

"I may," admitted the Tyro, unfavorably impressed by the manner in which
she was lorgnetting him, "but I don't at the moment recall it."

Exasperation flashed in Mrs. Denyse's cold eyes. She had spent much time
and trouble and no small amount of money advertising that name socially
in New York, and to find it unknown was a reflection upon the
intelligence of her investment. "Where on earth do you come from, then?"
she inquired acidly.

"Oh, all over the place," he answered with a vague gesture. "Mainly the
West."

[Illustration: SURPRISE HELD THE TYRO'S TONGUE IN LEASH]

"So one would suppose. It doesn't matter. I wish you to read this." She
thrust a folded newspaper page into his hand, adding: "It is