to a plentiful portion of kedgeree, Freddie watching him with repulsion mingled with envy. When he began to eat, the spectacle became too poignant for the sufferer, and he wandered to the window. 

 “What a beast of a day!” 

 It was an appalling day. January, that grim month, was treating London with its usual severity. Early in the morning a bank of fog had rolled up off the river, and was deepening from pearly white to a lurid brown. It pressed on the window-pane like a blanket, leaving dark, damp rivulets on the glass. 

 “Awful!” said Derek. 

 “Your mater’s train will be late.” 

 “Yes. Damned nuisance. It’s bad enough meeting trains in any case, without having to hang about a draughty station for an hour.” 

 “And it’s sure, I should imagine,” went on Freddie, pursuing his train of thought, “to make the dear old thing pretty tolerably ratty, if she has one of those slow journeys.” He pottered back to the fireplace, and rubbed his shoulders reflectively against the mantelpiece. “I take it that you wrote to her about Jill?” 

 “Of course. That’s why she’s coming over, I suppose. By the way, you got those seats for that theatre tonight?” 

 “Yes. Three together and one somewhere on the outskirts. If it’s all the same to you, old thing, I’ll have the one on the outskirts.” 

 Derek, who had finished his kedgeree and was now making himself a blot on Freddie’s horizon with toast and marmalade, laughed. 

 “What a rabbit you are, Freddie! Why on earth are you so afraid of mother?” 

 Freddie looked at him as a timid young squire might have gazed upon St. George when the latter set out to do battle with the dragon. He was of the amiable type which makes heroes of its friends. In the old days when he had fagged for him at Winchester he had thought Derek the most wonderful person in the world, and this view he still retained. Indeed, subsequent events had strengthened it. Derek had done the most amazing things since leaving school. He had had a brilliant career at Oxford, and now, in the House of Commons, was already looked upon by the leaders of his party as one to be watched and encouraged. He played polo superlatively well, and was a fine shot. But of all his gifts and qualities the one that extorted Freddie’s admiration in its intensest form was his lion-like courage as exemplified by 

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