looking. Of course, we talked about her ladyship, and I told him what
she said.

"Rum things, women," he says; "never know their own minds."

"Oh, they know them all right when they get there," I says. "How could
she tell what being a Marchioness was like till she'd tried it?"

"Pity," he says, musing like. "I reckoned it the very thing she'd tumble
to. I only come over to get a sight of 'er, and to satisfy myself as she
was getting along all right. Seems I'd better a' stopped away."

"You ain't ever thought of marrying yourself?" I asks.

"Yes, I have," he says. "It's slow for a man over thirty with no wife
and kids to bustle him, you take it from me, and I ain't the talent for
the Don Juan fake."

"You're like me," I says, "a day's work, and then a pipe by your own
fireside with your slippers on. That's my swarry. You'll find someone
as will suit you before long."

"No I shan't," says he. "I've come across a few as might, if it 'adn't
been for 'er. It's like the toffs as come out our way. They've been
brought up on 'ris de veau a la financier,' and sich like, and it just
spoils 'em for the bacon and greens."

I give her the office the next time I see her, and they met accidental
like in Kensington Gardens early one morning. What they said to one
another I don't know, for he sailed that same evening, and, it being the