"Going down to the Oval, to have an hour or two with the professionals? Good day to-day, and the ground's in clipping order." "No, I think not." "Well, then, look here. Come along with me: we'll go for a spin as far as Hendon; come back and dine at Jack Straw's Castle at Hampstead, where the man has some wonderfully-good dry sherry, which he bought the other day at a sale up there; and then walk quietly in at night. What do you say?" "No, I think not to-day, old fellow." "Oh, all right," said George Wainwright, after an instant's pause; "I'm sorry I spoke." "Don't be angry, George, old boy! You know I'm never so jolly as when I'm with you, and that there's no man on earth I care for like you," said Paul, earnestly; "but I've half-promised myself for this afternoon, and until I hear--and I expect to hear every moment--I don't know whether I'm free or not." "All right, Paul. I daresay I bore you sometimes, old man. I often think I do. But, you know, I'm five or six years older than you, and I was the first fellow you knew when you came into the service, through your people being acquainted with mine, and so I've a natural interest in you. Besides, you're a young swell in your way, and it does good to me to hear you talk and mark your freshness, and your--well, your youth. After thirty, a London man hasn't much of either." "At it again, are you, George? Why don't you keep a property tub on the premises? You can't do your old Diogenes business effectively without it. Or do you want no tub so long as you have me for your butt? Sold you there, I think. You intended to say that yourself." "Mr. Derinzy," said George Wainwright gravely, "you must indeed have lost every particle of respect for me when you could imagine that I would have descended to a low verbal jest of that nature. Well, since you won't come, I'll----" "I never said I wouldn't yet, though I can't expect you to wait any longer for my decision. I----" At that moment a messenger entered the room with a letter in his hand. "For you, sir," he said to Mr. Derinzy; "the boy wouldn't wait to know if there was an answer." "All right!" said Paul, opening it hurriedly, with a flushed face. It had an outer and an inner envelope, both sealed. "And I may be like the boy, I suppose," said George Wainwright, eyeing his friend with a curiously mixed expression of interest and pity; "I needn't wait to know if there's an answer." "No, dear old George; I can't come with you this afternoon," replied Paul; and then he looked at the letter again. It was very short; only one line: "At the usual place, at three to-day.--DAISY." CHAPTER IV. AFTER OFFICE-HOURS.