"Interfering old tabby!" observed Uncle Joseph testily. "If she persists in this preposterous nonsense we shall have to change your _venue_, Philip. Now for the Kind Young Hearts!" To judge by the contents of the second heap of envelopes, the International Brotherhood of Kind Young Hearts was an institution of variegated aims and comfortable income. A five-pound note dropped out of the first letter opened, the sender, in her covering epistle, expressing her warm admiration for the character of a heroic (but unfortunately fictitious) individual named Dimitri Papodoodlekos,--or something to that effect,--an Armenian gentleman of enlightened views and stiff moral fibre, who, having been converted late in life to the principles of Wesleyan Methodism, had persisted, in the very heart of the Ottoman Empire and in the face of all Islam, in maintaining and practising the tenets of his newly embraced creed until summarily deported from his native Armenia by direction of the Sultan himself. The writer begged to enclose a small contribution towards the sum of fifty pounds which she understood the Brotherhood of Kind Young Hearts was endeavouring to raise in order to set up the expatriated Papodoodlekos in a cigar-divan in Stoke Newington. The next letter contained a postal order for one pound, contributed by a warm-hearted but gullible female in Leicestershire, as a contribution towards the sum required to purchase a dress-suit for Samuel Mings, the Walthamstow garotter, who, having recently completed a term of fifteen years' penal servitude, was now anxious to atone for past misdeeds by plunging into a life of intense respectability. Samuel, it seemed, had decided to follow the calling of a waiter at suburban dinner-parties; and, being a man of agreeable address and imposing appearance, had already booked several conditional engagements in the Golder's Green district. A second-hand dress-suit was now all that was requisite to ensure for him a permanent residence in the paths of virtue. It may be mentioned here that sufficient cash to equip Samuel with an entire Bond Street _trousseau_ was yielded by this post alone. But the begging-letter writer, charm he never so wisely, draws a blank sometimes. Presently Uncle Joseph picked up a large grey envelope from the heap. "Man's handwriting," he observed. From the envelope he extracted a letter and a cheque. A casual glance at the face of the cheque caused him to raise his eyebrows comically and whistle. Then he skimmed through the letter. "Here's a fellow with a sense of humour," he said. "What a tonic after all these women!