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 the heroes on the bum carry the little book. It’s either Tantalus or Liver or Horace, and its printed in Latin, and you’re a college man. And I would n’t be surprised,’ says I, ‘if you wasn’t educated, too.’ But it was only the batting averages of the League for the last ten years.

“One night, about half past eleven, there comes in a party of these high-rollers that are always hunting up new places to eat in and poke fun at. There was a swell girl in a 40 H.-P. auto tan coat and veil, and a fat old man with white side-whiskers, and a young chap that could n’t keep his feet off the tail of the girl’s coat, and an oldish lady that looked upon life as immoral and unnecessary. ‘How perfectly delightful,’ they says, ‘to sup in a slosh.’ Up the stairs they go; and in half a minute back down comes the girl, her skirts swishing like the waves on the beach. She stops on the landing and looks our halberdier in the eye.

“‘You!’ she says, with a smile that reminded me of lemon sherbet. I was waiting up-stairs in the slosh, then, and I was right down here by the door, putting some vinegar and cayenne into an empty bottle of tabasco, and I heard all they said.

“‘It,’ says Sir Percival, without moving. ‘I’m only local colour. Are my hauberk, helmet, and halberd on straight?’

“‘Is there an explanation to this?’ says she. ‘Is it a practical joke such as men play in those Griddlecake and Lamb Clubs? I’m afraid I don’t see the point. I heard, vaguely, that you were away. For three months I—we have not seen you or heard from you.’