onder the Archdeacon said you'd be beaten in your
election."

"Did he say that?"

"Yes. We were talking to him this morning, Hilda and I and
Selby-Harrison, outside the exam hall. We told him we were going down to
make speeches for you."

"Was it before or after you told him that he said I'd be beaten?"

"Before," said Lalage firmly.

"Oh, Lalage! How can you? You know----"

I interrupted Hilda because I did not want to have the harmony of my
party destroyed by recrimination and argument.

"Suppose," I said, "that we have tea."

"I must say," said Lalage, "that you've collected a middling good show
of cakes, hasn't he, Hilda?"

Hilda looked critically at the tea table. She was evidently an expert in
cakes.

"You can't have got all those out of one shop," she said. "There isn't a
place in Dublin that has so many varieties!"

"I'm glad you like the look of them. Which of you will pour out the
tea?"

"Hilda's birthday was last month," said Lalage. "Mine isn't till July."

This settled the point of precedence. Hilda took her seat opposite the
teapot.

"There are ices coming," I said a few minutes later, "twelve of them. I
mention it in case----"

"Oh, that's all right," said Lalage. "We shall be able to manage the
ices. There isn't really much in these cakes."

If Selby-Harrison had come there would, I think, have been cakes enough;
but there would not have been any to spare. I only ate two myself. When
we had finished the ices we gave ourselves to conversation.

"That Tithers man," said Lalage, "seems to be a fairly good sort."

"Is Tithers another name for the Puffin?"

"No," said Lalage. "Tithers is Joey P."

"He signed his letter Joseph P.," said Hilda, "so at first we called him
that."

Titherington usually signs himself Joseph P. I inferred that he was
Tithers.

"You liked him?" I said.

"In some ways he's rather an ass," said Lalage, "'and just at first I
thought he was inclined to have too good an opinion of himself. But that
was only his manner. In the end he turned out to be a fairly good sort.
I thought he was going to kick up a bit when I asked him to sign the
agreement, but he did it all right when I explained to him that he'd
have to."

"Lalage," I said, "I'd like very much to see that agreement."

"Hilda has it. Hilda, trot out the agreement." Hilda trotted it out of
a small bag which she carried attached to her waist by a chain. I opened
it and read aloud:

"Memorandum of