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194 Seventy-nine, Hereford Road, Bayswater," which stroke of wit occasioned inextinguishable merriment from Miss, though it did not excite from the aforesaid laird so much as the smallest simper!

From an ingrained love of teasing, and also the natural desire to stimulate her appreciation of my superior fertility in small talk and l'art de plaire, I do often slyly contrive to inflict his sole society upon her—to the huge entertainment of her father and mother, who carry on the joke by assisting my manœuvrings; but, although it affords me a flattering gratification to be plaintively upbraided by Miss for my cruel desertion, I am resolved not to persist in such heartless pranks beyond her natural endurance.

Shortly after my arrival I heard from my host that he was the recipient of an invitation from a Mister, Q.C, that he and his son would accompany him to a shooting expedition upon some adjacent moors, and that, being now immoderately plump, and past his prime as a potshot, he had requested leave to nominate myself as his budli or substitute, explaining that I was a young Indian prince of great prowess at every kind of big games.

Accordingly, to my great delight, it was arranged that I should take his place.

My young friend, beholding me appear at the breakfast-table arrayed in my