If only he can keep off newts."

"Has he been talking about newts?"

"He has. Fixing me with a glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner. But
if that was the worst I had to bear, I wouldn't mind. What I'm worrying
about is what Tom says when he starts talking."

"Uncle Tom?"

"I wish there was something else you could call him except 'Uncle Tom',"
said Aunt Dahlia a little testily. "Every time you do it, I expect to see
him turn black and start playing the banjo. Yes, Uncle Tom, if you must
have it. I shall have to tell him soon about losing all that money at
baccarat, and, when I do, he will go up like a rocket."

"Still, no doubt Time, the great healer----"

"Time, the great healer, be blowed. I've got to get a cheque for five
hundred pounds out of him for _Milady's Boudoir_ by August the third at
the latest."

I was concerned. Apart from a nephew's natural interest in an aunt's
refined weekly paper, I had always had a soft spot in my heart for
_Milady's Boudoir_ ever since I contributed that article to it on What
the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing. Sentimental, possibly, but we old
journalists do have these feelings.

"Is the _Boudoir_ on the rocks?"

"It will be if Tom doesn't cough up. It needs help till it has turned the
corner."

"But wasn't it turning the corner two years ago?"

"It was. And it's still at it. Till you've run a weekly paper for women,
you don't know what corners are."

"And you think the chances of getting into uncle--into my uncle by
marriage's ribs are slight?"

"I'll tell you, Bertie. Up till now, when these subsidies were required,
I have always been able to come to Tom in the gay, confident spirit of an
only child touching an indulgent father for chocolate cream. But he's
just had a demand from the income-tax people for an additional fifty-eight
pounds, one and threepence, and all he's been talking about since I got
back has been ruin and the sinister trend of socialistic legislation and
what will become of us all."

I could readily believe it. This Tom has a peculiarity I've noticed in
other very oofy men. Nick him for the paltriest sum, and he lets out a
squawk you can hear at Land's End. He has the stuff in gobs, but he hates
giving up.

"If it wasn't for Anatole's cooking, I doubt if he would bother to carry
on. Thank God for Anatole, I say."

I bowed my head reverently.

"Good old Anatole," I said.

"Amen," said Aunt Dahlia.

Then the look of holy ecstasy, which i