lifting stroke at last--hurrah! . . .

By the same post, too, came the following note in an autocratic writing:


DEAR BIRD [for this was Shelton's college nickname],

My wife has gone down to her people, so I'm 'en garcon' for a few days.
If you've nothing better to do, come and dine to-night at seven, and go
to the theatre. It's ages since I saw you.

Yours as ever,

B. M. HALIDOME.


Shelton had nothing better to do, for pleasant were his friend
Halidome's well-appointed dinners. At seven, therefore, he went to
Chester Square. His friend was in his study, reading Matthew Arnold
by the light of an electric lamp. The walls of the room were hung with
costly etchings, arranged with solid and unfailing taste; from the
carving of the mantel-piece to the binding of the books, from the
miraculously-coloured meerschaums to the chased fire-irons, everything
displayed an unpretentious luxury, an order and a finish significant of
life completely under rule of thumb. Everything had been collected.
The collector rose as Shelton entered, a fine figure of a man, clean
shaven,--with dark hair, a Roman nose, good eyes, and the rather weighty
dignity of attitude which comes from the assurance that one is in the
right.