"`Oh, pray, constable, don't make a disturbance with our poor
friend. We will get her quietly home. She does drink too much, but
she is quite a lady--only eccentric.'

"`She butted me in the stomach,' said the policeman briefly.

"`Eccentricities of genius,' said Sam earnestly.

"`Pray let me take her home,' reiterated Bill, in the resumed
character of Miss James, `she wants looking after.' `She does,'
said the policeman, `but I'll look after her.'

"`That's no good,' cried Bill feverishly. `She wants her friends.
She wants a particular medicine we've got.'

"`Yes,' assented Miss Mowbray, with excitement, `no other medicine
any good, constable. Complaint quite unique.'

"`I'm all righ'. Cutchy, cutchy, coo!' remarked, to his eternal
shame, the Vicar of Chuntsey.

"`Look here, ladies,' said the constable sternly, `I don't like the
eccentricity of your friend, and I don't like 'er songs, or 'er
'ead in my stomach. And now I come to think of it, I don't like the
looks of you I've seen many as quiet dressed as you as was wrong
'uns. Who are you?'

"`We've not our cards with us,' said Miss Mowbray, with
indescribable dignity. `Nor do we see why we should be insulted by
any Jack-in-office who chooses to be rude to ladies, when he is