It was a good hour later. Hundreds of men and women had passed by in that time for me to look at—nearly as many dogs for Dandy. I had well-nigh forgotten my electrician when, happening to look down towards that sudden corner, I saw him hurry round it and make to come past me once more. I smiled in gratitude to Providence, but my reward was not full even then. He had an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, and, seeing me once more, knowing I was a friend no doubt, he stopped and asked me for a match. I took out my box.

"Did you find what you wanted?" said I, as he lit his cigarette.

He threw away the match and looked at me.

"I beg your pardon," said he.

"'Twas only," said I, "that you passed me here about an hour ago. You passed me twice. First time you were going out of the Park, the second time you came back. I saw you look at your watch. I imagined that you'd left some instrument at the house up West where you'd been working. You were evidently annoyed at the waste of time."

His eyes opened in some sort of amazement.

"Very quick of you to have noticed it, sir."

"Well—not very," I replied. "I sit here in the Park most mornings and amuse myself that way."

He gave me back my match-box.

"Well—that was just about it," he said. "I'd been fixing some blinds ready for the summer."

"Blinds for the summer," I echoed, "there's a sound about that."

He smiled broadly as he thought of it.

"By the way," said I, "you've lost your narcissus." He looked down quickly at his coat.

"Sch! Sch!" he said again, and with that turned and went away. I think he was beginning to mistrust me. He explained as he left me that he was in a great hurry. I have no doubt he was.

Now that really was the end of it, and for that I broke the very first letter of the tenth decree of Moses. For that lost narcissus, I envied him most of all. But when I say that I confess to envying him his little nursery maid, I simply mean that I envy every man his womenfolk, and the mood was heavy on me that morning. This 

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