silly ass had stopped the express, so they say, and held up our train for ten minutes."
"But you can't run away like that," expostulated the master of the house. "There is the agreement"
"Oh, don't you worry about that, Toppy, old man," said my namesake in the easiest manner. "I have put in a formal appearance and Boosey will look into the thing and see if there is anything coming to me out of the wreck. I'm afraid it will be rather a back-hander for you, Hilda, but I'm out of the running for the double now."
"You don't mean to say?" exclaimed all the friendlies, who had begun to pick up hope again.
"Yes, married already," admitted the gentleman complacently. "Met the lady in Brooklyn three months ago. She is what you might call flossy—distinctly flossy. She can put her heels against a chalked line on the stage, and without moving bend back till she picks up a nickel with her teeth. You shouldn't always have been so jolly stiff, Hilda, you know."
"I am delighted that you have found a lady who seems to be quite the reverse," replied Hilda pleasantly.
Thus had fate, in the shape of Nymph Aurelia again, been pulling benevolently at the reins of my destiny.
"For a practical young man, brought up in a new country, you seem to be strangely fanciful," remarked Hilda a week later, when I told her about these things.
"It is true," I admitted. "I am always having visions, seeing fairies, hearing voices, and touching posts. From the first moment I saw you"
The instant I said the words we both remembered the occasion when they were last spoken. Hilda turned away with rising colour. I was struck by a sudden fear that I had spoiled the thing.
