ing off the walls, the roof leaked like a sieve, and drains required to be overhauled. I'm getting the house done up."
"That will cost you a pretty penny!"
"Yes, I'm afraid so—it will mop up all my bit of capital."
"And so you chucked the service at seven-and-twenty! How was that?"
"Well, you see, my father made a point of it; the regiment was ordered to Egypt, and I could not get much leave, and anyway, I was all he had; but I don't mind telling you, Cousin Fred, that it was a wrench—I was most desperately sorry to go. Those bugles this morning in the Fort gave me—er—a horrible lump in my throat. Now I want to talk to you, if I am not taking up too much of your time."
"My time is my own," rejoined the little man rather grandly, "and anyway, it's not every day I have a call from you, Geoff."
"Then look here," tilting his chair nearer, "it's about this business—I want to know your opinion about Uncle Geoffrey."
"My opinion is, that he is dead—dead as a door-nail this thirty years," replied Colonel Tallboys with prompt decision.
"He certainly was not dead twenty-nine years ago, and supposing for the sake of argument he was still alive—I ask you just to look at the case from that point of view?"
"Possibly, but improbably, he got into some big scrape—and found it necessary to disappear."
"But by all accounts, he was straight as a die-no debts—no scandals," argued the young man.
"He is most certainly dead this many a day—or" and the little Colonel pursed up his lips, and stonily contemplated the opposite wall.
"Or?" repeated Mallender eagerly.
"Oh, I could tell you queer stories. If Geoffrey is alive, I can solve the puzzle in six letters—'a woman.'"
"What—a black woman! Oh, rats! you're not
