through his plump frame. His little eyes sparkled with merriment.

"You wrote her poetry!"

"Yards of it, old boy--yards of it!" groaned Freddie. Panic
filled him with speech. "You see the frightful hole I'm in? This
girl is bound to have kept the letters. I don't remember whether
I actually proposed to her or not; but anyway she's got enough
material to make it worth while to have a dash at an
action--especially after poor old Percy has just got soaked for
such a pile of money and made breach-of-promise cases the
fashion, so to speak.

"And now that the announcement of my engagement is out she's
certain to get busy. Probably she has been waiting for something
of the sort. Don't you see that all the cards are in her hands?
We couldn't afford to let the thing come into court. That poetry
would dish my marriage for a certainty. I'd have to emigrate or
something! Goodness knows what would happen at home! My old
gov'nor would murder me! So you see what a frightful hole I'm in,
don't you, Dickie, old man?"

"And what do you want me to do?"

"Why, to get hold of this girl and get back the letters--don't
you see? I can't do it myself, cooped up miles away in the
country. And besides, I shouldn't know how to handle a thing
like that. It needs a chappie with a lot of sense and a
persuasive sort of way with him."