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 pair of jemimas that also were "of the period," his years, in spite of a yellow parchment countenance of an incredible cunning, could at conservative estimate be reckoned as seventy.

On a certain morning of September, the years of the proprietor of S. Gedge Antiques, whatever they might be, sat heavily upon him. Tall, sombre, gaunt, a cross between a hop-pole and a moulting vulture, his tattered dressing gown and chessboard slippers lent a touch of fantasy to his look of eld, while the collar and dickey of commerce still adorned the back kitchen dresser.

Philosophers say that to find a reason for everything is only a question of looking. The reason for the undress of S. Gedge Antiques so late as eleven o'clock in the morning was not far to seek. His right hand man and sole assistant, who answered to the name of William, and who was never known or called by any other, had been away for an annual holiday of one week, which this year he had spent in Suffolk. He was due back in the course of that day and his master would raise a pæan on his return. In the absence of William the indispensable S. Gedge Antiques was like a windjammer on a lee shore.

There was a further reason for his lost air. He was "at outs" with Mrs. Runciman, his charwoman, a state of affairs which had long threatened to become chronic. An old, and in her own opinion, an under-*valued retainer, the suspension of diplomatic relations between Mrs. Runciman and her employer could always be traced to one cause. S. Gedge attributed it to the phases of the moon and their effect on the human female, but the real root of the mischief was Mrs. Runciman's demand for "a raise in her celery." For