gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to
behold. I shall have to treble my subscription to her
Cheerful Sunday Evenings Fund before I dare set foot in her
house again.

At that particular moment the croquet players finished their
game, which had been going on without a symptom of finality
during the whole afternoon. Why, I ask, should it have
stopped precisely when a counter-attraction was so necessary?
Everyone seemed to drift towards the area of disturbance, of
which the chairs of the Archdeacon's wife and Reginald formed
the storm-centre. Conversation flagged, and there settled
upon the company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn--
when your neighbours don't happen to keep poultry.

"What did the Caspian Sea?" asked Reginald, with appalling
suddenness.

There were symptoms of a stampede. The Archdeacon's wife
looked at me. Kipling or someone has described somewhere the
look a foundered camel gives when the caravan moves on and
leaves it to its fate. The peptonised reproach in the good
lady's eyes brought the passage vividly to my mind.

I played my last card.

"Reginald, it's getting late, and a sea-mist is coming on."
I knew that the elaborate curl over his right eyebrow was not
guaranteed to survive a sea-mist.