The nice young woman went on. "And do you know, I don't believe that a more filthy condition than that house was in--why, Mrs. Aiken had been away ten months! And there was a drunken cook singing in the kitchen all the while." "You are an inconsecutive puss," said the Baronet, very happy about the puss nevertheless. "You didn't finish your sentence. 'Filthy condition that house was in'--go on!" "Bother my sentence! Finish it yourself, Pupsey. Well--Reginald and Euphemia made it up like a shot. Couple of idiots! Then the question was--dinner. I said come home here, but they said clothes. There was some truth in what they had on, so I said hadn't we better all go and dine where Mr. Aiken had been going. Because I didn't call him Reginald to his face, you know!" "And you went, I suppose?" "I should think so. We dined at Mezzofanti's in Great Compton Street, Soho--no, it wasn't; it was Magliabecchi's--no!--Machiavelli's. And I talked such good Italian to the waiter. It _was_ fun! And what do you think we did next? ... Give it up?" Her father nodded. "Why--we went to the Adelphi Theatre--there! And we saw 'Charley's Aunt,' and we parted intimate bosom friends. Only Euphemia is rather fussy and distant, compared to Us, and I had to stick out to make her kiss me." A slight illustration served to show how the speaker had driven a coach-and-six through the bosom-friend's shyness. "Well," said the Baronet. "All I can say is--I wish I had been there with you. If I go to the play now--there I am, dressed in toggery and sittin' in the stalls! Lord, I remember when I was a young fellow, there was Charles Mathews and Madame Vestris ... you can't remember them...." "Of course I can't. I was only born nineteen years ago." The Baronet, however, added more recent theatrical experiences, but only brought on himself corrections from his liege lady. "My dear, you're quite at sea. Fancy the child recollecting Lord Dundreary and Buckstone! Why, she wasn't born or thought of!" But when this Baronet got on the subject of his early plays and operas, he developed reminiscence in its most aggravated form. He easily outclassed Aunt Priscey on the subject of her ancestors. Her ladyship abandoned him as incorrigible, without an apology, but his daughter indulged him and sat and listened. All things come to an end sooner or later, and reminiscence did, later. Then poor Madeline ran down in her spirits, and sat brooding over the war news. It was only a temporary sprint. Reginald and Euphemia vanished, and Jack came back. Madeline kept all this story of the talking photograph to herself. To talk of it she would have had to tell her friend's dream, and that she had promised not to do.