, might
be valuable at the Exhibition. Michael therefore accepted his boisterous
greeting pleasantly enough, and they passed through the turnstiles
together.

"I'll introduce you to a smart girl, if you like," Drake offered, as
they paused undecided between the attractions of two portions of the
Exhibition. "She sells Turkish Delight by the Cave of the Four Winds.
Very O.T., my boy," Drake went on.

"Do you mean----" Michael began.

"What? Rather," said Drake. "I've been home to her place."

"No joking?" Michael asked.

"Yes," affirmed Drake with a triumphant inhalation of sibilant breath.

"Rather lucky, wasn't it?" Michael asked. "I mean to say, it was rather
lucky to meet her."

"She might take you home," suggested Drake, examining Michael
critically.

"But I mightn't like her," Michael expostulated.

"Good Lord," exclaimed Drake, struck by a point of view that was
obviously dismaying in its novelty, "you don't mean to say you'd bother
about that, if you could?"

"Well, I rather think I should," Michael admitted. "I think I'd want to
be in love."

"You are an extraordinary chap," said Drake. "Now if I were dead nuts on
a girl, the last thing I'd think of would be that."

They walked along silently, each one pondering the other's
incomprehensibleness, until they came to the stall presided over by Miss
Mabel Bannerman, who in Michael's opinion bore a curious resemblance to
the Turkish Delight she sold. With the knowledge of her he had obtained
from Drake, Michael regarded Miss Bannerman very much as he would have
looked at an animal in the Zoological Gardens with whose habits he had
formed a previous acquaintanceship through a book of natural history. He
tried to perceive beyond her sachet-like hands and watery blue eyes and
spongy hair and full-blown breast the fascination which had made her
man's common property. Then he looked at Drake, and came to the
conclusion that the problem was not worth the difficulty of solution.

"I think I'll be getting back," said Michael awkwardly.

"Why, it's not ten," gasped Drake. "Don't be an ass. Mabel gets out at
eleven, and we can take her home. Can't we, Mabel?"

"Sauce!" Mabel archly snapped.

This savoury monosyllable disposed of Michael's hesitation, and, as the
personality of Mabel cloyed him with a sudden nausea like her own
Turkish Delight, he left her to Drake without another word and went home
to bed.

The night was hot and drew Michael from vain at