, just coming up to the counter, making a jumping
kangaroo out of five cigars.

"The other fellow was more silent and more ordinary; but somehow he
alarmed me much more than poor little Smythe. He was very tall and
slight, and light-haired; his nose had a high bridge, and he might
almost have been handsome in a spectral sort of way; but he had one of
the most appalling squints I have ever seen or heard of. When he looked
straight at you, you didn't know where you were yourself, let alone what
he was looking at. I fancy this sort of disfigurement embittered the
poor chap a little; for while Smythe was ready to show off his monkey
tricks anywhere, James Welkin (that was the squinting man's name) never
did anything except soak in our bar parlour, and go for great walks
by himself in the flat, grey country all round. All the same, I think
Smythe, too, was a little sensitive about being so small, though he
carried it off more smartly. And so it was that I was really puzzled, as
well as startled, and very sorry, when they both offered to marry me in
the same week.

"Well, I did what I've since thought was perhaps a silly thing. But,
after all, these freaks were my friends in a way; and I had a horror of
their thinking I refused them for the real reason, which was that they
were so impossibly ugly. So I made up some gas of another sort, about
never meaning to marry anyone who hadn't carved his way in the world. I
said it was a point of principle with me not to live on money that
was just inherited like theirs. Two days after I had talked in this
well-meaning sort of way, the whole trouble began. The first thing I
heard was that both of them had gone off to seek their fortunes, as if
they were in some silly fairy tale.

"Well, I've never seen either of them from that day to this. But I've
had two letters from the little man called Smythe, and really they were
rather exciting."

"Ever heard of the other man?" asked Angus.

"No, he never wrote," said the girl, after an instant's hesitation.
"Smythe's first letter was simply to say that he had started out walking
with Welkin to London; but Welkin was such a good walker that the little
man dropped out of it, and took a rest by the roadside. He happened to
be picked up by some travelling show, and, partly because he was nearly
a dwarf, and partly because he was really a clever little wretch, he
got on quite well in the show business, and was soon sent up to the
Aquarium, to do