his nasturtium granddaughter a good swimmer. He has thirteen, and
has christened each of them after a flower. He hopes thirteen isn't
unlucky, and then Major Roper comes in apologetic. Sally can just
recollect having seen him before, and thinks him as purple as ever.

"Lund--er!--Lund--er!--Lund--er!--Lund," he begins; each time he says
the name being baffled by a gasp, but holding tight to Sally's hand, as
though to make sure of her staying till he gets a chance. He gets none,
apparently, for he gives it up, whatever he was going to say, with the
hand, and says instead, in a lucky scrap of intermediate breath: "I was
comin' round--just comin'--only no gettin' those dam boots on!" And
then becomes convulsively involved in an apology for swearing before
a young lady. She, for her part, has no objection to his damning his
boots if he will take them off, and not go out. This she partly
conveys, and then, after a too favourable brief report of the patient's
state--inevitable under the circumstances--she continues:

"That's what I came on purpose to say, Major Roper. You're not to come
out on any account in the fog. Colonel Lund wouldn't be any better for
your coming, because he'll think of you going back through the fog,
and he'll fret. Please do give up the idea of coming until it clears.
Besides, he isn't my grandfather." An inconsecutive finish to correct
a mistake of Old Jack's. She resumes the chair she had risen from when
he came in, and thereupon he, suffering fearfully from having no
breathing-apparatus and nothing to use it on, makes concession to a
chair himself, but all the while waves a stumpy finger to keep Sally's
last remark alive till his voice comes. The other old soldier remains
standing, but somewhat on Sally's other side, so that she does not see
both at once. A little voice, to be used cautiously, comes to the Major
in time.

"Good Lard, my dear--excuse--old chap, you know!--why, good Lard, what
a fool I am! Why, I knoo your father in India."

But he stops suddenly, to Sally inexplicably. She does not see that
General Pellew has laid a finger of admonition on his lips.

"I never saw my father," she says. It is a kind of formula of hers
which covers all contingencies with most people. This time she does not
want it to deadlock the conversation, which is what it usually serves
for, so she adds: "You really knew him?"

"Hardly knoo," is the reply. "Put it I met him two or three times, and
you'll abou