hat a heavy affair it
can be, especially if you are a speaker; sprinkle a few women through
the audience, and behold the livening effect. At a party or a public
meeting in the Wheat Pit or the battlefield, women, or the recollection
of a woman, form or forms one of the greatest liveners to conversation,
speech, or action. Most men fight the battle of life for a woman. Jones,
as he sat up and drank his morning tea, gazing the while at the vision
of Teresa, Countess of Rochester, had found, almost unknown to himself,
a new incentive to action.

The position yesterday had begun to sag, very little would have made him
"quit," take a hundred pounds from the eight thousand and a passage by
the next boat to the States; but that girl in the Victoria, those eyes,
that voice, those words--they had altered everything.

Was he in love? Perhaps not, but he was fascinated, held, dazzled.

More than that, the world seemed strange--brighter; he felt younger,
filled with an energy of a new brand. He whistled as he crossed the
floor to look out of the window, and as he tubbed he splashed the water
about like a boy.

It was easy to see that the unfortunate man had tumbled into a position
more fantastic and infinitely more dangerous than any position he had
hitherto occupied since setting foot in the house of Rochester.

That vanished and fantastic humourist would have found plenty to feed
his thoughts could he have returned.

The cheque book from the National Provincial Bank arrived by the first
post, and after breakfast he put it aside in a drawer of the bureau in
the smoking room. He glanced through the usual sheaf of letters from
unknown people, tradesmen, whose accounts were marked "account rendered"
and gentlemen who signed themselves with the names of counties. One of
the latter seemed indignant.

"I take this d--d bad of you, Rochester," said he. "I've found
it out at last, you are the man responsible for that telegram. I
lost three days and a night's sleep rushing up to Cumberland on
a wild goose chase, and I'm telling people all about it. Some
day you'll land yourself in a mess. Jokes that may be funny
amongst board school boys are out of place amongst men.

"LANGWATHBY."

Jones determined to send Langwathby a telegram of apology when he had
time to look his name up in "Who's Who"; then he put the letters aside,
called for his hat and cane an