one and butter. She was just busy thinking how
rude he was not even to have said "Good morning," when an abrupt remark
from him caused her to look up.

"Will you be good enough," he said suddenly, "to give me a description
of the man who sat next to you just now, while you were having your cup
of coffee and scone."

Involuntarily Polly turned her head towards the distant door, through
which a man in a light overcoat was even now quickly passing. That man
had certainly sat at the next table to hers, when she first sat down to
her coffee and scone: he had finished his luncheon--whatever it
was--moment ago, had paid at the desk and gone out. The incident did not
appear to Polly as being of the slightest consequence.

Therefore she did not reply to the rude old man, but shrugged her
shoulders, and called to the waitress to bring her bill.

"Do you know if he was tall or short, dark or fair?" continued the man
in the corner, seemingly not the least disconcerted by the young girl's
indifference. "Can you tell me at all what he was like?"

"Of course I can," rejoined Polly impatiently, "but I don't see that my
description of one of the customers of an A.B.C. shop can have the
slightest importance."

He was silent for a minute, while his nervous fingers fumbled about in
his capacious pockets in search of the inevitable piece of string. When
he had found this necessary "adjunct to thought," he viewed the young
girl again through his half-closed lids, and added maliciously:

"But supposing it were of paramount importance that you should give an
accurate description of a man who sat next to you for half an hour
to-day, how would you proceed?"

"I should say that he was of medium height--"

"Five foot eight, nine, or ten?" he interrupted quietly.

"How can one tell to an inch or two?" rejoined Polly crossly. "He was
between colours."

"What's that?" he inquired blandly.

"Neither fair nor dark--his nose--"

"Well, what was his nose like? Will you sketch it?"

"I am not an artist. His nose was fairly straight--his eyes--"

"Were neither dark nor light--his hair had the same striking
peculiarity--he was neither short nor tall--his nose was neither
aquiline nor snub--" he recapitulated sarcastically.

"No," she retorted; "he was just ordinary looking."

"Would you know him again--say to-morrow, and among a number of other
men who were 'neither tall nor short, dark nor fair, aquiline nor
snub-nosed,' etc.?"

"I d