ack's breakfast-room after dinner. Miss Warburton having gone home,
Mr. Prohack had determined to employ her official room for formal
interviews. With her woman's touch she had given it an air of business
which pleasantly reminded him of the Treasury.

Ozzie was not wearing an eye-glass, and the absence of the broad black
ribbon that usually ran like a cable-connection between his eye and his
supra-umbilical region produced the disturbing illusion that he had
forgotten an essential article of attire.

"Yes," Ozzie replied, opening his eyes with that mien of surprise that
was his response to all questions, even the simplest. "Miss Sissie has
cracked it."

"I'm very sorry my daughter should be so clumsy."

"It was not exactly clumsiness. I offered her the eye-glass to do what
she pleased with, and she pleased to break it."

"Surely an impertinence?"

"No. A favour. Miss Sissie did not care for my eye-glass."

"You must be considerably incommoded."

"No. The purpose of my eye-glass was decorative, not optical." Ozzie
smiled agreeably, though nervously.

Mr. Prohack was conscious of a certain surprising sympathy for this
chubby simpering young man with the peculiar vocation, whom but lately
he had scorned and whom on one occasion he had described as a perfect
ass.

"Well, shall we sit down?" suggested the elder, whom the younger's
nervousness had put into an excellent state of easy confidence.

"The fact is," said Ozzie, obeying, "the fact is that I've come to see
you about Sissie. I'm very anxious to marry her, Mr. Prohack."

"Indeed! Then you must excuse this old velvet coat. If I'd had notice of
the solemnity of your visit, my dear Morfey, I'd have met you in a
dinner jacket. May I just put one question? Have you kissed Sissie
already?"

"I--er--have."

"By force or by mutual agreement?"

"Neither."

"She made no protest?"

"No."

"The reverse rather?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you come here to me?"

"To get your consent."

"I suppose you arranged with Sissie that you should come here?"

"Yes, I did. We thought it would be best if I came alone."

"Well, all I can say is that you're a very old-fashioned pair. I'm
afraid that you must have forgotten to alter your date calendar when the
twentieth century started. Let me assure you that this is not by any
means the nineteenth. I admit that I only altered my own date calendar
this afternoon, and even then only as the result of an unusual dream."