ad just been calling on me."

"Then I wish you'd entreat him not to go downstairs like a six-inch
shell. I'll have a bruise to-morrow where the crown of his hat caught me
as big as a soup-plate."

I offered the cheerily indignant warrior apologies for my friend's
parabolic method of descent, and suggested Elliman's Embrocation.

"The most extraordinary part of it," he interrupted, "was that when I
picked him up he was weeping like anything. What was he crying about?"

"He is a sensitive creature," said I, "and he doesn't come upon the pit
of the stomach of a Colonel of British Cavalry every day in the week."

He sniffed uncertainly at the remark for a second or two and then
broke into a laugh and asked me to play bridge after dinner. On the two
preceding evenings he and I had attempted to cheer, in this manner,
the desolation of a couple of the elderly maiden ladies. But I may
say, parenthetically, that as he played bridge as if he were leading a
cavalry charge according to a text-book on tactics, and as I play card
games in a soft, mental twilight, and as the two ladies were very keen
bridge players indeed, I had great doubts as to the success of our
attempts.

"I'm sorry," said I, "but I'm going down into the town to-night."

"Theatre? If so, I'll go with you."

The gallant gentleman was always at a loose end. Unless he could
persuade another human being to do something with him--no matter
what--he would joyfully have played cat's cradle with me by the hour--he
sat in awful boredom meditating on his liver.

"I'm not going to the theatre," I said, "and I wish I could ask you to
accompany me on my adventure."

The Colonel raised his eyebrows. I laughed.

"I'm not going to twang guitars under balconies."

The Colonel reddened and swore he had never thought of such a thing. He
was a perjured villain; but I did not tell him so.

"In what my adventure will consist I can't say," I remarked.

"If you're going to fool about Algiers at night you'd better carry a
revolver."

I told him I did not possess such deadly weapons. He offered to lend
me one. The two Misses Bostock from South Shields, who sat at the table
within earshot and had been following our conversation, manifested signs
of excited interest.

"I shall be quite protected," said I, "by the dynamic qualities of
your acquaintance, Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos, with whom I have
promised to spend the evening."

"You had better have the revolver,