by Nicky and began to examine them. He had to
hold them far away from his eyes and even then to pucker up his lids
before he could quite make them out. Georgie watched him.

"You know, Ishmael, you want specs," she said suddenly. "I'm sure of it!
I've been watching you for ages and you never seem able to take in
anything unless it's a mile off. And all your headaches, too...."

Ishmael thought angrily: "Is there anything women won't say outright?
Can't she see I've been sick with terror about my eyes for months, and
that's why I haven't done anything about it?" Aloud he only said
gruffly: "I'm all right!"

"But you aren't!" persisted Georgie. "What's the good of saying you are
when you aren't?"

"Well, if you like I'll go and see an oculist next time I go to
Plymouth," promised Ishmael. "Will that do you?"

"I like that. It's not for me. I only said," began Georgie indignantly;
but he pulled her head to him and held it there a moment before kissing
her.

"Run away, there's a dear!" he said. "Eyes or no eyes, I've got to get
this done, and you know you can't add two and two, so it's no good
saying you'll stay and help."

"I can make two and two make five, which is the whole art of life,"
retorted Georgie, laughing. "But as there's the dinner to order, and as
you could no more do that than I could see to the accounts, I'll go."
She bent over him, and wickedly parted his hair away from a thin patch
that was coming on the crown of his head before kissing him full upon
it.

When she was gone Ishmael let the accounts lie untouched before him,
and, getting up, he crossed to the window and stood looking out. He
heard the sound of wheels and hoofs coming along the lane at the side of
the garden wall, and the next moment saw the head of Nicky's leader,
apparently protesting violently, come beyond the angle of the wall.
Nicky was evidently trying to turn it in the direction of the main road,
but the leader had other views, and gave expression to them by sitting
down suddenly on his haunches, with his white-stockinged forelegs struck
straight out, his fiddle-head, with the white blaze between his wicked
eyes, looking round over his shoulder at the invisible Nicky, whose
remarks came floating up to Ishmael on the breeze. Finally the leader
was made to see the error of his ways, and the light dog-cart swung
round the corner, and with a flourish of the whip and a clatter and a
heart-catching swerve round the angle of the hed