Love at Paddington
friends they deserve to have. Are we going the direction to suit you, missy, or would you rather have gone Edgware Road way?" 

 "Let's turn down London Street," she suggested.  "It will be quiet there. I've something to tell you."  She rolled her parasol carefully. "And I want your help, Mr. Trew." 

 Three youths near the underground station, with apparently no urgent occupation, came forward hopefully on seeing Gertie; detecting the fact that she was in the company of a big, burly man, they had to pretend a sudden interest in a shuttered window. The two, going into Norfolk Square, walked on the narrow pavement near the railings of the garden. 

 "Mr. Trew, I've got a young man!" 

 "That's the best news," he exclaimed heartily, "I've heard this summer!" 

 "And I want somehow to get him asked indoors. Once aunt sees him and hears him talk, it will be all right. But I'm nervous about it, and I don't know how to manage." 

 "This," he said, holding up a forefinger, "is just where old Harry Trew comes in. This is exactly the sort of job he's fitted for. If he hadn't took up with another occupation he'd have found himself by this time in the Foreign Office. Do you want it arranged for to-night?" 

 "Please!" 

 "Right you are! You're going to meet him, I take it, presently. You asked me to come out with you simply as an excuse for that purpose. Very well, then. I've got a standing invite, as you very well know, to drop in at the nine o'clock meal any Sunday evening I like. Your aunt expects me."  The forefinger became emphatic.  "You simply arrange for him to meet me, say, outside the Met. at ten minutes to the hower; I shall be carrying a Lloyd's in my right hand. I brings him along," continued Mr. Trew exultantly; "I introduces him as a young personal friend of mine that I met on the steamer going to Clacton, year before last. Your aunt says at once that any friend of mine is a friend of her'n. You and him pretend not to know each other, but you gradually become acquainted, and your aunt asks him, at the finish, to look in again. Does that sound all right, or can you suggest a better plan?" 

 "It's splendid," she cried. 

 "I think," he continued, "I shall mention in the course of the evening that his father was the best friend I ever had in the world. When I was in 
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