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 before I could find Major Street. I felt I wanted a man's help. Men really are useful sometimes when you want somebody knocked down or given a real good talking to. I remember thinking how useful Lord Hendley would have been. He always looks quite capable of knocking anybody down, and that does give a woman such a safe, confiding, comfortable sort of feeling. As it was, however, I had to confide in Major Street, so I told him all about the Boy, whom I knew he had taken a great fancy to, and all about Fluffy and the wicked General. He listened quite quietly; that's what I always like about a man. He'll hear you out to the end however roundabout you are, and he won't keep interrupting you with idiotic questions as a woman would.

'Now,' I said to him when I had finished, 'you've just got to save that Boy without too rude a shock to his feelings.'

Major Street didn't seem to think that the feelings of the 'young fool' mattered. But I felt hopeful, because when an older man calls a younger one a 'young fool' in that tone of voice it means he's going to do his best for him. Two days later the Major came and flung himself down in a chair beside me. 'The young fool!' he muttered between his teeth—'the confounded young fool!' I waited. When a man speaks in that low, determined sort of voice a woman thinks herself lucky if he doesn't swear outright. So I waited till the danger was past.