she says I may write and just
tell you. If you want to say good-by could you telephone, she says.
P'raps you don't. P'raps you've forgotten us. I can tell you Jenkins is
sick about it all and your never going to the Gim. He said to me to-day,
'I don't know what's come over Mr. Leith.' No more do I. The mater says
you're a busy man and have a kid. I say a true friend is never too
busy to be friendly. I really do feel rotten over it, and now we are
going.--Your affectionate JIMMY."

Dion showed Rosamund the letter, and telephoned to say he would call on
the following day. Jimmy's voice answered on the telephone and said:

"I say, you have been beastly to us. The mater says nothing, but we
thought you liked us. Jenkins says that between boxers there's always
a--"

At this point Jimmy was cut off in the flow of his reproaches.

On arriving at Claridge's Dion found Jimmy alone. Mrs. Clarke was out
but would return in a moment. Jimmy received his visitor not stiffly but
with exuberant and vociferous reproaches, and vehement demands to know
the why and wherefore of his unsportsmanlike behavior.

"I've ordered you a real jam tea all the same," he concluded, with a
magnanimity which did him honor, and which, as he was evidently aware,
proved him to be a true sportsman.

"You're a trump," said Dion, pulling the boy down beside him on a sofa.

"Oh, well--but I say, why didn't you come?"

He stared with the mercilessly inquiring eyes of boyhood.

"I don't think I ever said on my honor that I would come."

"But you did. You swore."

"No. I was afraid of the policeman."

"I say, what rot! As if you could be afraid of any one! Why, Jenkins
says you're the best pupil he's ever had. Why didn't you? Don't you like
us?"

"Of course I do."

"The mater says you're married, and married men have no time to bother
about other people's kids. Is that true?"

"Well, of course there's a lot to be done in London, and I go to
business every day."

"You've got a kid, haven't you?"

"Yes!"

"It's a boy, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I say, how old is it?"

"A year and a month old, or a little over."

Jimmy's face expressed satire.

"A year and a month!" he repeated. "Is that all? Then it can't be much
good yet, can it?"

"It can't box or do exercise as you can. You are getting broad."

"Rather! Box? I should think not! A kid of a year old boxing! I should
like to see it with Jenkins."

He begin to giggle. By the time Mrs.