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WILLIAM HENRY WINTERBOTHAM
57

side boots and cameo brooch and mittens and things were merely a slight accentuation of her usual up-to-date Paquin-cum-Worth style."

"My poor Buster—yow have done it this time," agreed Mummy, when she had finished laughing. "The stupid woman must have thought it was a carefully studied insult!"

"Yes. She did. Shall I go and explain?" asked the ingenuous subaltern.

"Do," was the reply. "Go and tell her that it was a very natural mistake. Say she always looks so like her own grandmother that the error was natural and inevitable."

Buster groaned.

"I must go and play with the kids till I feel better," he said at last, and sighed wearily, as he rose to go upstairs to the Club.

"Venus is getting fat and lazy," remarked Boodle to Buster as they rested after winning the Derby—Boodle in the rôle of the King's Jockey and Buster in that of Favourite—the Vice and Amir representing the Also Ran fraternity. "He simply wouldn't take part in that