boy sailed. John Selborne sighed.
Twenty-two, and off to the wars, heart-whole. Whereas he had been
invalided at the very beginning of things and now, when he was well and
just on the point of rejoining--the motor-car and the Brydges woman! And
as for heart-whole ... the Brydges woman again.

He fell asleep. When he awoke there was full sunshine and an orchestra
of awakened birds in the garden outside. There was tea--there were
letters. One was from Sidney--Sidney, who had left him not twelve hours
before.

He tore it open, and hurt his shoulder in the movement.

"DEAR JOHN," said the letter, "I wanted to tell you last night,
but you seemed so cheap, I thought I'd better not bother you.
But it's just come into my head that perhaps I may get a bullet
in my innards, and I want you to know. So here goes. There's a
girl I mean to marry. I know she'll say Yes, but I can't ask
her till I come back, of course. I don't want to have any
humbug or concealing things from you; you've always been so
decent to me. I know you hate jaw, so I won't go on about that.
But I must tell you I met her first when she was serving in a
tobacconist's shop. And her mother lets lodgings. You'll think
this means she's beneath me. Wait till you see her. I want you
to see her, and make friends with her while I'm away."

Here followed some lover's raptures, and the address of the lady.

John Selborne lay back and groaned.

Susannah Sheepmarsh, tobacconist's assistant, lodging-house keeper's
daughter, and Sidney Selborne, younger son of a house whose pride was
that it had been proud enough to refuse a peerage.

John Selborne thought long and deeply.

"I suppose I must sacrifice myself," he said. "Little adventuress! 'How
easy to prove to him,' I said, 'that an eagle's the game her pride
prefers, though she stoops to a wren instead.' The boy'll hate me for a
bit, but he'll thank me later. Yalding? That's somewhere on the Medway.
Fishing? Boating? Convalescence is good enough. Fiction aid us! What
would the villain in a book do to come between fond lovers? He would
take the lodgings: at least he would try. And one may as well do
something."

So he wrote to Mrs Sheepmarsh--she had rooms to let, he heard. Terms?
And Mrs Sheepmarsh wrote back; at least her reply was typewritten, which
was a bit of a shock. She had rooms. They were disengaged. And the terms
were thus and such.

Behold Jo