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off their heads...
    'That's all right what that old cat-fancier and cheater-at-solitaire says,' he replied with a dignity which became him well. 'Here's a little message which you can pass on to her from me. You can tell her... No, on second thoughts, perhaps better not. Just give her my love and say I hope it chokes her.'
    He suspended his remarks in order to foil the attempt of an assistant cashier named Bodkin to muscle into the compartment together with his wife Miriam, his sister Louise, his caged parrot Polly, and what had the appearance of being the full strength of some juvenile school or college. There was, he assured them quite falsely, plenty of room further down the train, and the success of his arguments seemed to exercise upon Beatrice a softening effect. When she resumed the conversation, it was on a gentler note.
    'I do hope you won't get slack while I'm away. I want you to keep on going to concerts and picture galleries.'
    Packy quivered devoutly.
    'Let 'em try to keep me out! That's all I say. Just let 'em try it.'
    They are doing you so much good.'
    'You bet they are. I can feel the old soul swelling like a poisoned pup.'
    'Yascha Pryzsky is giving a recital at Queen's Hall to-morrow.'
    'Atta Yascha!'
    'And there's that new play at the Gate Theatre they say is so wonderful. What I feel is that if you were going about with a man like Blair Eggleston...'
    Packy patted her hand fondly.
    'I won't let him out of my sight. If you want me to sop up tea with him this afternoon, I will sop it up till my eyeballs squeak. And day by day in every way I will haunt him more and more. He shall dress of a morning and find me lurking in his left shoe .... Hullo, you're off.'
    The train had given itself a shake and was now beginning to slide along the platform. Packy trotted beside it. Beatrice continued to lean out of the window.
    'Well, mind you do see plenty of Mr Eggleston.'
    'I bet it'll seem plenty.'
    'Don't miss Pryzsky.'
    'I won't.'
    'And see that play at the Gate.'
    'I will.'
    The train gathered speed. Packy removed his hat and waved it lovingly.
    'And go and get your hair cut,' screamed Beatrice. 'You look like a chrysanthemum.'
    The train bore her out of sight.
2
    Packy stood on the platform, running an appraising hand over the back of his head. Yes, he saw what she meant. Slightly on the matted side, perhaps. Undoubtedly a suggestion of Absalom, the son of Saul. They had got the 4.21 off on the dot, so there would be ample time for him to look in at the barbershop of the Hotel Northumberland before meeting the pill, Eggleston. He hailed a cab, feeling something of the valiant glow which comes to a knight who has been given a behest by his ladye and sees his way clear to the fulfilment of it.
    The barber-shop of the Hotel Northumberland, which is situated in the basement of that well-known caravanserai, is as a rule a busy, bustling place, gay with the click of scissors and all the latest news about the weather. To Packy's surprise, it contained, when he entered it some minutes later, not only no customers but, oddly enough, no barbers either. A strange quiet enfolded the room, and the scent of bay-rum hung eerily over its emptiness.
    But he was not in the frame of mind to devote much attention to the matter. He relished rather than marvelled at this solitude. Sitting down to wait, he gave himself up to long, loving thoughts of Beatrice.
    A quarter of an hour later, he awoke to discover that the place was still entirely free from barbers.
    For these apparently inexplicable mysteries there is always a solution. We cannot here go into the rights and wrongs of the case, though it was one fraught with great interest: we must content ourselves with stating that for some little while past disaffection had been rearing its ugly head among the hair-dressing staff of the Hotel Northumberland, with the result that at precisely four o'clock that afternoon a lightning strike had been called and the rebels had downed