’No, poor Lilian died ten years ago.  I am afraid you don’t know my wife.  I don’t think you ever met.’

‘It isn’t Edith Appleblossom, surely?  Is it?’

‘No, I ...’ and then I stopped just in time!  ’No, you don’t know my wife, I’m sure, and if you don’t mind my saying so, I think I had better not introduce you.  Forgive me, but she wouldn’t quite understand you, I fear....’

‘Wouldn’t quite approve, eh?’ said he, with a merry laugh.  ’Poor old chap!’

‘Well, I’m better off than that,’ he continued.  ’Why, Doll and I love for a week, and then forget each other’s names in a twelvemonth, when Poll comes along, and so on.  And neither of us is any the worse, believe me.  We’re one as fickle as the other, so where’s the harm?’

‘Ah, my dear fellow, you did make a mistake,’ he ran on.  ’I suppose you forget Robert Louis’ advice—­"Times are changed with him who marries," etc.’

‘He’s married himself,’ I replied.

’And I suppose you never drop in for a pipe at “The Three Tuns” now of an evening?’

‘No!  I haven’t been near the place these many years.’

’Poor old fellow!  The Bass is superb at present.

I recollected.  ‘Won’t you have some wine with me?’ I said.  ’I have some fine old Chianti.  And take a cigar?’

’No, thanks, old man.  I’m too sad.  Come with me to “The Three Tuns,” and let’s have an honest pint and an honest pipe together.  I don’t care about cigars.  Come to-night.  Let’s make a night of it.  We’ll begin at “The Three Tuns,” then call at “The Blue Posts,” look in at “The Dog and Fire-irons,” and finish up at “The Shakespeare’s Head.”  What was it we used to troll?—­

    ’From tavern to tavern
      Youth passes along,
    With an armful of girl
      And a heart-full of song.’

‘Hush!’ I cried in terror; ’it is impossible.  I cannot.  Come to my club instead.’  But he shook his head.

I persuaded him to have some Chianti at last, but he drank it without spirit, and thus we sat far into the night talking of old days.

Before he went I made him a definite offer—­he must have bewitched me, I am sure—­I offered him no less than L5000 and a share in the business for the sprig of almond-blossom the ridiculous young pagan carried in his hat.

And will you believe me?  He declined the offer.

THE PATHETIC FLOURISH

The dash under the signature, the unnecessary rat-tat of the visitor, the extravagant angle of the hat in bowing, the extreme unction in the voice, the business man’s importance, the strut of the cock, the swagger of the bad actor, the long hair of the poet, the Salvation bonnet, the blue shirt of the Socialist:  against all these, and a hundred examples of the swagger of unreflecting life, did a little brass knocker in Gray’s Inn warn me the other evening.  I had knocked as no one should who is not a postman,