ed Bindle as they passed down the
moving-stairway at Earl's Court.

"Oh, Uncle Joe, I'm so happy!" she cried, giving his arm that
affectionate squeeze with both her hands that never failed to thrill
him. "Please go on talking to Charlie; I love to hear you--and think."

"Now I wonder wot she's thinkin' about?" Bindle muttered. "Right-o,
Millikins!" he said aloud. "You got two young men to-night, an' you
needn't be afraid of 'em scrappin'."

As they entered the Universal Cafe, with its brilliant lights and
gaily chattering groups of diners Millie caught her breath. To her it
seemed a Nirvana. Brought up in the narrow circle of Mr. Hearty's
theological limitations, she saw in the long dining-room a
gilded-palace of sin against which Mr. Hearty pronounced his
anathemas. As they stood waiting for a vacant table, she gazed about
her eagerly. How wonderful it would be to eat whilst a band was
playing--and playing such music! It made her want to dance.

Many glances of admiration were cast at the young girl who, with
flushed cheeks and parted lips, was drinking in a scene which, to
them, was as familiar as their own finger-nails.

When at last a table was obtained, due to the zeal of a susceptible
young superintendent, and she heard Charlie Dixon order the
three-and-sixpenny dinner for all, she seemed to have reached the
pinnacle of wonder; but when Charlie Dixon demanded the wine-list and
ordered a bottle of "Number 68," the pinnacle broke into a thousand
scintillating flashes of light.

She was ignorant of the fact that Charlie was as blissfully unaware as
she of what "Number 68" was, and that he was praying fervently that it
would prove to be something drinkable. Some wines were abominably
sour.

"I've ordered the dinner; I suppose that'll do," he remarked with a
man-of-the-world air.

Millie smiled her acquiescence. Bindle, not to be outdone in
savoir-faire, picked up the menu and regarded it with wrinkled brow.

"Well, Charlie," he remarked at length, "it's beyond me. I s'pose it's
all right; but it might be the German for cat an' dog for all I know.
I 'opes," he added anxiously, "there ain't none o' them long white
sticks with green tops, wot's always tryin' to kiss their tails. Them
things does me."

"Asparagus," cried Millie, proud of her knowledge, "I love it."

"I ain't nothink against it," said Bindle, recalling his experience at
Oxford, "if they didn't expect you to suck it like a sugar stick. You
wa