r a whole day waiting for you to chance
in--unless Larkin looked to the matter. So he used to pop his red head
in at the post-office door, whenever he was near, just to ascertain if
there were a blue envelope lying there for one of his clients. And if
there were, that client was in possession of it in a few minutes.

"By George, K,--I've got to catch the one-thirty," said Hugh, and he
strode this way across his little room and then that way, and knocked a
chair over, and seized hold of his coat and began to struggle into it,
and still seemed no farther on his way.

"All right,--don't get excited, old fellow," said Kate, "I'll manage
it,--no, never mind that coat, you can't travel in it. Shall I pack your
bag for only one day or longer?" Hugh read the message again, but it did
not seem to help him with the amount of clothing he would need; indeed
it merely sent his thoughts off at a tangent.

"Never mind," Kate said briskly, "a few extra things won't be in the
way. Now see here, Hugh, go in and shave, I'll bring your hot water,
then dress, your brown suit and your new Panama--I wonder where your
travelling cap is? No need to get flurried, you can have twenty minutes
to dress and then take a comfortable half-hour for lunch. Larkin's here,
luckily; I can send him for a wagonette, so you won't have to waste time
walking to the station."

Hugh felt his chin.

"I suppose I must shave? I shouldn't meet any one by this train." He
looked at her anxiously for indulgence.

"Certainly you must," she said severely, and then he knew there was no
hope.

"Do you want any of this with you?" she added, nodding across to his
paper-strewn table, "or shall I put it all in a safe place till you come
back?"

"Oh, by Jove," he said,--"yes, there's that short story of mine, 'Fools
of Fortune'--I've promised that for the _Melbourne Review_, it ought to
have been posted last night. And then there's that woman's stuff--I
suppose there's no time for me to run across to Miss Bibby, eh, K?"

"Certainly there is not," said Kate decisively, "you don't stir from
here without a comfortable lunch."

"Well," said Hugh, "see here, K, I'll leave her stuff here on the desk
in this envelope, and you take it over to her and tell her I think if
she goes more on these lines the tale will be stronger."

"All right," said Kate, "and what about the other tale,--the one for the
_Melbourne Review_?"

Hugh hastily stuffed some more MS into an envelope, w