a deft swing he sent him crashing into a clump of
tall nettles, which closed receptively round him. The victim had not
been brought up in a school which teaches one to repress one's
emotions--if a fox had attempted to gnaw at his vitals he would have
flown to complain to the nearest hunt committee rather than have
affected an attitude of stoical indifference. On this occasion the
volume of sound which he produced under the stimulus of pain and rage
and astonishment was generous and sustained, but above his bellowings
he could distinctly hear the triumphant chattering of his enemy in the
tree, and a peal of shrill laughter from Groby.

When the boy had finished an improvised St. Vitus caracole, which would
have brought him fame on the boards of the Coliseum, and which indeed
met with ready appreciation and applause from the retreating figure of
Groby Lington, he found that the monkey had also discreetly retired,
while his clothes were scattered on the grass at the foot of the tree.

"They'm two ipes, that's what they be," he muttered angrily, and if his
judgment was severe, at least he spoke under the sting of considerable
provocation.

It was a week or two later that the parlour-maid gave notice, having
been terrified almost to tears by an outbreak of sudden temper on the
part of the master anent some underdone cutlets. "'E gnashed 'is teeth
at me, 'e did reely," she informed a sympathetic kitchen audience.

"I'd like to see 'im talk like that to me, I would," said the cook
defiantly, but her cooking from that moment showed a marked improvement.

It was seldom that Groby Lington so far detached himself from his
accustomed habits as to go and form one of a house-party, and he was
not a little piqued that Mrs. Glenduff should have stowed him away in
the musty old Georgian wing of the house, in the next room, moreover,
to Leonard Spabbink, the eminent pianist.

"He plays Liszt like an angel," had been the hostess's enthusiastic
testimonial.

"He may play him like a trout for all I care," had been Groby's mental
comment, "but I wouldn't mind betting that he snores. He's just the
sort and shape that would. And if I hear him snoring through those
ridiculous thin-panelled walls, there'll be trouble."

He did, and there was.

Groby stood it for about two and a quarter minutes, and then made his
way through the corridor into Spabbink's room. Under Groby's vigorous
measures the musician's flabby, redundant figure s