She didn't seem to hear me.     

       'Twenty-five years! What did you say, Bertie?'     

       'Watch this act and tell me what you think of it.'     

       'Who is it? Ray. Oh!'     

       'Exhibit A,' I said. 'The girl Gussie's engaged to.'     

       The girl did her act, and the house rose at her. They didn't want to let her go. She had to come back again and again. When she had finally disappeared I turned to Aunt Julia.     

       'Well?' I said.     

       'I like her work. She's an artist.'     

       'We will now, if you don't mind, step a goodish way uptown.'     

       And we took the subway to where Gussie, the human film, was earning his thirty-five per. As luck would have it, we hadn't been in the place ten       minutes when out he came.     

       'Exhibit B,' I said. 'Gussie.'     

       I don't quite know what I had expected her to do, but I certainly didn't expect her to sit there without a word. She did not move a muscle, but just stared at Gussie as he drooled on about the moon. I was sorry for the woman, for it must have been a shock to her to see her only son in a mauve frockcoat and a brown top-hat, but I thought it best to let her get a strangle-hold on the intricacies of the situation as quickly as possible. If I had tried to explain the affair without the aid of illustrations I should have talked all day and left her muddled up as to who was going to marry whom, and why.     

       I was astonished at the improvement in dear old Gussie. He had got back his voice and was putting the stuff over well. It reminded me of the night at Oxford when, then but a lad of eighteen, he sang 'Let's All Go Down the Strand' after a bump supper, standing the while up to his knees in the college fountain. He was putting just the same zip into the thing now.     

       When he had gone off Aunt Julia sat perfectly still for a 

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