A tramp on the bench close by stirred uneasily in his sleep as the gurgling laughter ripped the air.

“Been looking at the water?” inquired Lord Dreever. “I have. I often do. Don’t you think it sort of makes a chap feel—oh, you know. Sort of—I don’t know how to put it.”

“Mushy?” said Jimmy.

“I was going to say poetical. Suppose there’s a girl——”

He paused and looked down at the water. Jimmy was with him there. There was a girl.

“I saw my party off in a taxi,” continued Lord Dreever, “and came down here for a smoke. Only I hadn’t a match. Have you?”

Jimmy handed over his match-box. Lord Dreever lit a cigar, and fixed his gaze once more on the river.

“Ripping it looks,” he said.

Jimmy nodded.

“Funny thing,” said Lord Dreever. “In the daytime the water here looks all muddy and beastly. Damn depressing, I call it. But at night——” He paused. “I say,” he went on, after a moment, “did you see the girl I was with at the Savoy?”

“Yes,” said Jimmy.

“She’s a ripper,” said Lord Dreever devoutly.

On the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of a summer morning, there is no such thing as a stranger. The man you talk with is a friend, and if he will listen—as, by the etiquette of the place, he must—you may pour out your heart to him without restraint. It is expected of you.

“I’m fearfully in love with her,” said his lordship.

“She looked a charming girl,” said Jimmy.

They examined the water in silence. From somewhere out in the night came the sound of oars, where the police-boat moved on its patrol.

“Does she make you want to go to Japan?” asked Jimmy suddenly.

“Eh?” said Lord Dreever, startled. “Japan?”

Jimmy adroitly abandoned the position of confidant and seized that of confider.

“I met a girl a year ago. Only really met her once, and even then—oh, well. Anyway, it’s made me so restless that I haven’t been able to stay in one place for more than a month on end. I 

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