Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 24).djvu/538

528 "You can have all there is," murmured Muriel, ruefully.

"Which means, I fear, that there is very little? And I could drink up a pailful. Nor would it be the first time either. I have often drunk a pailful when sheep-shearing out at Worrabinda."

"There are three dozen pots of tea waiting to be made," said Muriel again, "and if you like you can have them all."

"Dear me, my luck has turned at last," said the young man, gaily, putting down his hat and stick and choosing his chair. "I have been into a dozen different tea-shops and simply couldn't get served, the crowd was so great, and I was almost afraid to come in here as it was past six, and I supposed the tea-hour would be over."

"Here it has never begun," announced Muriel, her mouth trembling again, and a dewdrop fell from her dark lashes on to her roseleaf cheek. "We have not had a single human being all day."

And then because she was so unhappy, and because the young man was so sympathetic, and because Eva had gone to get the tea, she found herself telling the whole story of their great venture, their high hopes, and their frightful disillusionment.

"Well, that's too bad!" declared the young man. "But just like Fortune. She plays us these tricks continually. Look at King Edward, for instance, and look at me. Here I am, home in England for the first time in my life, after a year's hard work with the Australians in South Africa. I find myself alone in London, among six million or so of people, without a soul to exchange a word with. I can tell you I have found it jolly dull all day, and what with this news about the King, and what with the prospect of having to go without my tea, I've wished myself back in Worrabinda more than once. But the thing is to buck up, and take the jade's blows smiling. She gives them to try our mettle, I think, for when she finds it fairly tough she always relents in our favour. Now, if I had crumpled up as I had half a mind to do, and gone back to my hotel, I should not now be enjoying such a delicious cup of tea in such charming company. For I'm sure you'll do me the kindness of taking tea with me? I'm feeling so awfully lonely away from all my people, and it would be such a tremendous pleasure to me to be allowed to chat a little with you ladies."

Eva and Muriel, who themselves were weak from worry and want of food, couldn't resist his friendly petition. And he was so boyish, so open-hearted, and so outspoken that they were soon getting on with him as though they had known him all their lives.

But Eva's more practical mind was busy with housekeeping; she was thinking of all the stacks of food ranged round the larder, and she gave a little sigh.

"I wonder whether anyone will come into dinner?" she said.

But a great idea had occurred to the guest.

"I was just going to ask whether I might not dine here myself," he replied. "And I shall probably bring a friend with me, or several friends. Perhaps as many as fifty. Could you accommodate fifty?"

The tea ladies gasped a little, for had he not said that he knew no one in London? But it was not for them to accuse a customer, and their only customer too, of inconsistency of statement. Besides, he had already seized his hat and stick, and, with a friendly bow, was gone.

"Good gracious!" cried Muriel, rippling over now with laughter. "What an extraordinary young man! Why, he hasn't even paid for his tea!"

"Do you think he is a little queer?" Eva wondered. "You see, he's so sunburnt that very likely he's had sunstroke too."

But neither Eva nor Muriel accused him for one instant of anything worse than forgetfulness or eccentricity. There are certain faces one can never doubt.

The tea ladies, however, would certainly have thought their only customer actually mad had they witnessed his next proceedings.

A fat poodle had escaped from his mistress's victoria as it stood drawn up by the kerbstone, and turned a deaf ear to her agonized pleadings and the blandishments of the footman seeking to cajole it back. It ran perversely between the feet of the pedestrians, calling forth opprobrious names upon its beribboned head.

The young man laid a firm hand on the scruff of its neck, and carried it yelping to its owner's knee.

The old lady received it with tears of gratitude, displacing a still fatter pug in favour of the prodigal.

"If I could but do something for you!" she said, wistfully, to the poodle's preserver.

"You can come and dine with me," he retorted, promptly. "I don't know whether you have ever had a son, madam, but you are very like my own mother, and she, at this