d, they _had_ "simply wiped
the floor with him" in the billiard-room. Anyhow, he was furious. He
actually used the word "unwarrantable," and it was rather a long word
for a mere stripling of a nephew to use to an auntie who was paying all
his expenses. However, he's a nice enough boy at the bottom, and soon
got down off his high horse. I must tell you that Nellie Smith wore that
jacket all day, quite without any concern. These Colonials don't really
seem to mind what they wear. At any rate she didn't. She was just as
much at ease in that jacket as she had been in her gorgeousness the
evening before. And she and Ellis were walking about together all day.
The next day of course we all left. We couldn't stay, seeing the state
we were in.... Now, don't you think it's a very curious story?

Thus spake Mrs Ellis across the tea-table in an alcove at the Hanover.

"But you've not finished the story!" I explained.

"Yes, I have," she said.

"You haven't explained what you were doing at my tailor's in Sackville
Street."

"Oh!" she cried, "I was forgetting that. Well, I promised Ellis a new
suit. And as I wanted to show him that after all I had larger ideas
about tailoring than he had, I told him I knew a very good tailor's in
Sackville Street--a real West End tailor--and that if he liked he could
have his presentation suit made there. He pooh-poohed the offer at
first, and pretended that his Bursley tailor was just as good as any of
your West End tailors. But at last he accepted. You see--it meant an
authorized visit to London.... I'd been into the tailor's just now to
pay the bill. That's all."

"But even now," I said, "you haven't finished the story."

"Yes, I have," she replied again.

"What about Nellie Smith?" I demanded. "A story about a handsome girl
named Nellie, who could make a break of twenty-eight at billiards, and a
handsome dog like Ellis Carter, and a fire, and the girl wearing the
youth's jacket--it can't break off like that."

"Look here," she said, leaning a little across the table. "Did you
expect them to fall in love with each other on the spot and be engaged?
What a sentimental old thing you are, after all!"

"But haven't they seen each other since?"

"Oh yes! In London, and in Bursley too."

"And haven't they--"

"Not yet.... They may or they mayn't. You must remember this isn't the
reign of Queen Victoria.... If they _do_, I'll let you know."

THE TIGER AND THE BABY

I

George P