further and lasting popularity among the Vampires of Willesden Green by officiating as referee in their annual encounter with the Stoke Newington Hornets. Verily the road to the heart of healthy young-manhood is marked in plain figures. A third and by no means unattractive rose-leaf was Miss Jennings, the typist. She troubled Philip considerably at first. He found her presence disturbing. To him it seemed fundamentally wrong that a man should sit in a room with his hat on while a young and ladylike girl stood waiting at his elbow for orders. He endeavoured to remedy these anomalies by removing his hat in Miss Jennings's presence and rising from his seat whenever she entered his private room--courtesies which his typist secretly regarded as due to weakness of intellect rather than the instinct of chivalry, though she valued them in her heart none the less. It was a long time, too, before Philip grew accustomed to dictating letters. His first incursion into this enterprise gave him an uncomfortable quarter of an hour. He began by ringing for Alfred, and asking him to request Miss Jennings to be so good as to come and speak to him for a moment. His message was delivered by that youthful humourist with elaborate ceremony,--this was in the pre-Willesden-Green days,--coupled with a confident assurance that it portended either a proposal of marriage or "the sack." Miss Jennings's reply Philip did not catch, for only Alfred's raucous deliverances could penetrate closed doors, but it effectually silenced that young gentleman's guns. His only discernible retort was "Suffragette!" Presently Miss Jennings appeared, slightly flushed, and shut the door behind her. "You want me, Mr. Meldrum?" she asked. Philip rose to his feet. "Yes. Would you mind taking down one or two letters for me, Miss Jennings?" he said. "Oh, is that all?" replied Miss Jennings, quite composed again. "Mr. Atherton usually just shouts. I'll go and get my things." She returned with her writing-pad, and taking a chair at Philip's elbow, sat down and regarded him with an indulgent smile. Philip began, huskily:-- _The Britannia Motor Company, Limited, Oxford Street, London, October._ Miss Jennings sat patiently waiting. "I know that bit," she intimated gently. Philip apologised, and continued hurriedly:-- "_Dear Sir_--No, I expect you know that bit, too." "That bit's all right," said Miss Jennings calmly. "I wasn't to know who you were writing to. It might have been your wife." Philip, who had not hitherto realised that it was possible for a man to correspond with the wife of his bosom by means of a machine operated by a third party, apologised again, and added quite gratuitously that he was not married. Miss Jennings, having secured the information she required, smiled forgivingly, and the dictation proceeded. _We are in receipt of your letter of October the fourteenth._ "They usually say 'esteemed communication,'" said Miss Jennings.