not meet again
for a long while. So much the better. Now he could get on with his book
in peace. Gilbert was right. Women _do_ upset things. Well, this
particular woman would not upset him again....

They had read all the notices when Henry returned, and were now at
breakfast. Roger was relating the latest legal jest about Mr. Justice
Kirkcubbin, a poor old man who persisted in clinging to the Bench in
spite of the broadest hints from the _Law Journal_, and Ninian was
making mysterious movements with his hands.

"What's the matter, Ninian?" Henry asked, as he sat down at the table.

Ninian, while searching for the notices of Gilbert's play, had seen a
sentence in a serial story in one of the newspapers.... "_Her hands
fluttered helplessly over his breast_" ... and he was trying to discover
exactly what the lady had done with her hands. "She seems to have just
flopped them about," he said, and he turned to Gilbert. "Look here,
Gilbert," he said, "you try it. I'll clasp you in my arms as the hero
clasped this female, and you'll let your hands flutter helplessly over
my breast!"

"I'll let my fist flutter helplessly over your jaw, young Ninian!..."

"I don't believe she let her hands do anything of the sort," Ninian went
on. "She couldn't have done it. An engineer couldn't do it, and I don't
believe a female can do what an engineer can't do!"

"I suppose," he added, getting up from the table, "Tom Arthurs is half
way across now. I wish I could have gone with him. What a holiday!"

"Talking of holidays," Gilbert said, "I'm going to take one, and as you
don't seem in a fit state to do any work, Quinny, you'd better take one
too, and come with me!"

"Where are you going?" Roger asked. "Anglesey?"

"No. I thought of going there, but I've changed my mind. I shall go to
Ireland with Quinny."

"Ireland!" Henry exclaimed, looking across at Gilbert.

"Yes. Dublin. We can go to-night. I've never been there, and I'd like to
know what these chaps, Marsh and Galway, are up to. That whatdoyoucallit
movement you were telling me about?... you know, the thing that means 'a
stitch in time saves nine' or something of the sort!"

"Oh, the Sinn Fein movement!"

"Yes. That's the thing. The Improved Tories ought to know about
that...."

"That reminds me," said Roger, "of an idea I had in the middle of the
night about the Improved Tories. We ought to publish our views on
problems. The Fabians do that kind of thing rather well. We