in time for dinner.

Strangely enough, nothing was farther from Roland's mind than his
bright weekly paper, as he sat down to dine in a crowded grill-room
near Piccadilly Circus. Four weeks of acute torment in a city where
nobody seemed to understand the simplest English sentence had driven
'Squibs' completely from his mind for the time being.

The fact that such a paper existed was brought home to him with the
coffee. A note was placed upon his table by the attentive waiter.

"What's this?" he asked.

"The lady, sare," said the waiter vaguely.

Roland looked round the room excitedly. The spirit of romance gripped
him. There were many ladies present, for this particular restaurant was
a favorite with artistes who were permitted to "look in" at their
theaters as late as eight-thirty. None of them looked particularly
self-conscious, yet one of them had sent him this quite unsolicited
tribute. He tore open the envelope.

The message, written in a flowing feminine hand, was brief, and Mrs.
Grundy herself could have taken no exception to it.

"'Squibs,' one penny weekly, buy it," it ran. All the mellowing effects
of a good dinner passed away from Roland. He was feverishly irritated.
He paid his bill and left the place.

A visit to a neighboring music-hall occurred to him as a suitable