Furnishing followed. One fine morning a party consisting of Peggy, Miss Leslie, Philip, and Timothy set out to purchase household equipment of every kind. It was a disastrous expedition. All four were in a mood for enjoyment, and their high spirits, as very often happens when the young of the two sexes combine to transact business jointly, took the form of helpless, speechless, and unseemly laughter. If a majestic shop-walker, addressing the party as a whole, enquired what he might have the pleasure of showing to them, every one waited for some one else to reply: then, after a pause, every one replied at once. An untimely explosion followed, and the party turned on its heel and hurried, panic-stricken, into the street. Timothy was at the bottom of the trouble. He began the day by marching into Harrods's and ordering a funeral; repudiating the contract, after ten minutes of ghoulish detail, upon the plea of having suddenly remembered that the deceased had expressed a desire to be buried at sea, and asking instead to be directed to the Canadian canoe department. Later, he conducted his followers to the establishment of an extremely select and most expensive bootmaker in St. James's. The whole party were ushered with much solemnity into an apartment upon the first floor--Timothy wearing a face of intense gravity, Philip in a gentle perspiration, and Peggy and Miss Leslie dumbly gripping one another's fingers. The room was plainly but expensively furnished. Upon a pedestal in one corner stood a plaster cast of a Royal foot. Two serious gentlemen in frock-coats stood awaiting them. These, after providing chairs and offering a few observations upon the weather and the Parliamentary situation, inquired Timothy's pleasure. "I want a Wellington boot," said Timothy. The stouter of the two serious gentlemen touched a bell; whereupon a third gentleman in a frock-coat appeared. "A pair of hunting-tops," announced the stout man. The newcomer brought a small stool, and lowering himself upon knee with knightly grace, began to grope under Timothy's chair for one of Timothy's feet. "Not for myself," explained Timothy. "For a grand-uncle of mine--Lieutenant-Colonel Busby, of the Indian Army." "If the Colonel," suggested the senior frock-coat deferentially, "would favour us with a call, we could measure him for a pair more satis--" "Not a pair," corrected Timothy. "I said just one. My grand-uncle had the misfortune to lose a leg in Afghanistan in eighteen-sixty-seven, so naturally he does not require two boots. Besides, I doubt if he could call on you. He goes out very seldom now: he is almost bedridden, in fact. All he wants is a number nine Wellington boot. Have you got one?" The frock-coats conferred in mysterious whispers, while the two ladies did not cease to cling to one another. "We should be happy to make the boot, sir," was the final verdict. "Is it for the right foot or left?" Timothy's face expressed the utmost dismay.