wouldn't come to them."

"But you never hear of any swell being a medium. Why don't the spirits
go to a prime minster or some of those fellows? Only think what a help
they'd be."

"If they come from the devil," suggested Doodles, "he wouldn't let them
do any real good."

"I've heard a deal about them," said Archie, "and it seems to me that
the mediums are always poor people, and that they come from nobody knows
where. The Spy is a clever woman I dare say--"

"There isn't much doubt about that," said the admiring Doodles.

"But you can't say she's respectable, you know. If I was a spirit, I
wouldn't go to a woman who wore such dirty stockings as she had on."

"That's nonsense, Clavvy. What does a spirit care about a woman's
stockings?"

"But why don't they ever go to the wise people? that's what I want to
know." And as he asked the question boldly he struck his ball sharply,
and, lo! the three balls rolled vanquished into three different pockets.
"I don't believe about it," said Archie, as he readjusted the score.
"The devil can't do such things as that, or there'd be an end of
everything; and as to spirits in the air, why should there be more
spirits now than there were four-and-twenty years ago?"

"That's all very well, old fellow," said Doodles, "but you and I ain't
clever enough to understand everything." Then that subject was dropped,
and Doodles went back for a while to the perils of Jack Stuart's yacht.

After the lunch, which was, in fact, Archie's early dinner, Doodles was
going to leave his friend, but Archie insisted that his brother captain
should walk with him up to Berkeley Square, and see the last of him into
his cab. Doodles had suggested that Sir Hugh would be there, and that
Sir Hugh was not always disposed to welcome his brother's friends to his
own house after the most comfortable modes of friendship; but Archie
explained that on such an occasion as this there need be no fear on that
head; he and his brother were going away together, and there was a
certain feeling of jollity about the trip which would divest Sir Hugh of
his roughness. "And besides," said Archie, "as you will be there to see
me off; he'll know that you're not going to stay yourself." Convinced by
this, Doodles consented to walk up to Berkeley Square.

Sir Hugh had spent the greatest part of this day at home, immersed among
his guns and rods, and their various appurtenances. He also had
breakfasted at his club, but had orde