oyce, save this ghastly story, which might or
might not be true. Officially, he had made an unholy mess of such a
simple military operation as rounding up a Boer farm, and the prize of
one dead old Boer had covered him with ridicule; but officially, also,
he had retrieved his position by distinguished service. After all, it
was not his fault that his men had run away. On the other hand...well,
you cannot but appreciate the vicious circle of my thoughts, when
Betty, in her frank way, came and told me of her engagement to him.
What could I say? It would have been damnable of me to hint at scandal
of years gone by. I received them both and gave them my paralytic
blessing, and Leonard Boyce accepted it with the air of a man who might
have been blessed, without a qualm of conscience, by the Third Person
of the Trinity in Person.

This was in April, 1914. He had retired from the Army some years before
with the rank of Major, and lived with his mother--he was a man of
means--in Wellingsford. In the June of that year he went off salmon
fishing in Norway. On the outbreak of war he returned to England and
luckily got his job at once. He did not come back to Wellingsford. His
mother went to London and stayed there until he was ordered out to the
front. I had not seen him since that June. And, as far as I am aware,
my dear Betty had not seen him either.

Marigold entered.

"Well?" said I.

"I thought you rang, sir."

"You didn't," I said. "You thought I ought to have rung, But you were
mistaken."

I have on my mantelpiece a tiny, corroded, wooden Egyptian bust, of so
little value that Mr. Hatoun of Cairo (and every visitor to Cairo knows
Hatoun) gave it me as Baksheesh; it is, however, a genuine bit from a
poor humble devil's tomb of about five thousand years ago. And it has
only one positive eye and no expression.

Marigold was the living replica of it--with his absurd wig.

"In a quarter of an hour," said I, "I shall have rung."

"Very good, sir," said Marigold.

But he had disturbed the harmonical progression of my reflections. They
all went anyhow. When he returned, all I could say was:

"It's Miss Betty's wedding to-morrow. I suppose I've got a morning coat
and a top hat."

"You have a morning coat, sir," said Marigold. "But your last silk hat
you gave to Miss Althea, sir, to make a work-bag out of the outside."

"So I did," said I.

It was an unpleasant reminiscence. A hat is about as symbolical a
garment a