Page:The principal girl (IA principalgirl00snai).pdf/36

 "Have you an Old Etonian Association necktie?" he asked of Mr. Thomas Ling, although he knew quite well that Mr. Thomas Ling had, and a Ramblers' also if he had required it.

"The narrow or the broad, sir?" said Mr. Thomas Ling.

"The broad," said the heir to the barony; but at Mr. Thomas Ling's look of frank incredulity, he corrected it to "the narrow."

Armed with the narrow, the heir to the barony left the shop of Mr. Thomas Ling poorer by the sum of five and sixpence, and also by a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist which he had the misfortune to leave upon the counter.

"Cross as two sticks," muttered the stricken young man as he reached the very end of the celebrated thoroughfare, and gazed an instant into the window of Messrs. Wan & Sedgar to see how their famous annual winter sale was getting on in the absence of the winter.

The mind of the heir to the barony hovered not unpleasantly, for all its unhappiness, over a peculiarly chaste display of silk and woolen pajamas, three pairs for two guineas, guaranteed unshrinkable, when with a shock he awoke to the fact that he was no longer the proud possessor of a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist.

"I'm all to pieces this mornin'," registered the vain