me for an impossibility. . . Cloete inside ready to fly out like a
tiger and rend him; but he opens the door a little way and says
softly: Talking of hearts, yours is no bigger than a mouse's, let
me tell you. . . But George doesn't care--load off the heart,
anyhow. And just then Captain Harry comes in. . . Hallo, George
boy. I am little late. What about a chop at the Cheshire, now? .
. . Right you are, old man. . . And off they go to lunch together.
Cloete has nothing to eat that day.

"George feels a new man for a time; but all of a sudden that fellow
Stafford begins to hang about the street, in sight of the house
door. The first time George sees him he thinks he made a mistake.
But no; next time he has to go out, there is the very fellow
skulking on the other side of the road. It makes George nervous;
but he must go out on business, and when the fellow cuts across the
road-way he dodges him. He dodges him once, twice, three times;
but at last he gets nabbed in his very doorway. . . What do you
want? he says, trying to look fierce.

"It seems that ructions had come in the basement of that boarding-
house, and the widow lady had turned on him (being jealous mad), to
the extent of talking of the police. THAT Mr. Stafford couldn't
stand; so he cleared out like a scared stag, and there he was,
chucked into the streets, so to speak. Cloete looked so savage as
he went to and fro that he hadn't the spunk to tackle him; but
George seemed a softer kind to his eye. He would have been glad of
half a quid, anything. . . I've had misfortunes, he says softly, in
his demure way, which frightens George more than a row would have
done. . . Consider the severity of my disappointment, he says. . .