"What's this?--a cheque?--payable to you!--for five thousand pounds! Peggy, what does this mean?" "It means that what I told you of 's come off, and before next Sunday, too. It means that I've been engaged to be married since I saw you; and now I'm disengaged again; and I've been paid five thousand pounds for allowing myself to be disengaged again. It was this rig-out did it. You remember that scene at the Frivolity, where the costers were supposed to take their donahs to Hampstead Heath on a bank holiday? This was one of the costumes which the girls wore. The sight of it was enough for Sir Frank Pickard and his aristocratic friends. I could have got ten thousand if I'd liked, but I was satisfied with five. Joe, that means that you needn't emigrate; and that we can be married whenever you like." They were married within the month. * * * * * When Sir Archibald Ferguson had finished the story which is here set down, I regarded him for some moments in silence. "That's not a bad yarn; but--how come you to be so well acquainted with the intimate details?" Before he answered he rolled his cigar over and over between his fingers as if considering. Then he stood up in front of the fireplace and, from that vantage post, beamed down at me. "I'll tell you. Open confession is--occasionally--good for the soul. I can trust you. I have taken the liberty to alter the names of some of my characters. The Frank Pickard of my story is--yours truly, Archie Ferguson." "No?" "Yes. Seems incredible, doesn't it, that a staid and happily-married man of many years' standing, with a big family of strapping sons and daughters, should have been that particular kind of idiot. But it's true; I was. It only demonstrates--what perhaps does not need demonstration--that because a youngster shows himself to be a first-class fool as a youngster, you mustn't take it for granted that he's going to continue to be a fool his whole life long." "But how came you to be so well posted in the lady's part of the story?" "That's not the least queer part of it. When Mr and Mrs Bennett-Lamb first established themselves here I felt--funny. I didn't know what I might expect. But one day we were going up by the same train to town. She invited me into her compartment. I didn't quite like going, but--I did. We had the compartment to ourselves. After the train had started she told me her side of the story, exactly as I have told it you. She told it uncommonly well--uncommonly. And by the time the train reached town I was more than half inclined to the opinion that the five thousand pounds had been judiciously expended. Fact! She has made her husband a first-rate wife, and been an excellent mother to his child. In fact, she's an all-round clever woman." "So," I admitted, with a degree of candour which I am not sure that he altogether relished, "I should imagine." XI A MUTUAL AFFINITY