"And why in the name of fortune should I be merry? What's to make me merry?" "Well, we all have to make the best of things. Miss Donnithorne says so." "Don't you mention the name of that hussy to me!" "Hannah, you have no right to call her that. She is a most sweet, dear, charming woman." "Get you out of my kitchen, Dumps!" "Hannah, what do you mean?" "Mean? I don't want that woman coming fussing round the place, making up to you, dressing you up--I know what it means. Don't you talk to me. Get along, Dumps, or I'll say something angry. Now then, out you go!" Hannah pushed the cotton-wool well into her ear with her thumb, and after that I knew that I might as well talk to a deaf and dumb image. PART ONE, CHAPTER TEN. A VERY QUEER CHUM. I went to tea with Augusta Moore. She was full of raptures with regard to the tickets which I had brought her. She turned in the street and kissed me quite demonstratively; but the next moment she lapsed into one of her brown studies. "Do look out," I said; "you will be run over." "As if that mattered," said Augusta. "As if what mattered?" I asked. "Why, what you said just now. Don't interrupt me. I am puzzling out a thought which will lead to--oh! it has gone--don't speak; it will come back if you keep quiet. There, I've nearly caught it!" "Oh Augusta!" I said, "you mustn't talk in that way while we are walking in this street." I clutched her by the arm. "Guide me, Dumps; guide me, commonplace Dumps; then I shall be able to think in peace." I guided her then very steadily. We walked up Queen's Road. Queen's Road is a long street. "I thought," I said, "that you lived somewhere near Inverness Terrace, close to the Twopenny Tube." Augusta pulled up short. "What have you been doing?" she said. "What have I been doing?" I answered. "Why, you've led me more than half a mile away from home, and mother will be very much annoyed." "Well, you must wake up and get me there in some sort of fashion," I said, "for I cannot possibly guide myself when I don't know where you live." Thus adjured, and by dint of constant pokes, and even pinches, I did manage to take Augusta to her own home. There was a lift which would take us to her mother's flat at the top of the great house; but she was a quarter way up the stairs before I was able to remind her of the fact. She then said it didn't matter, and began to quote from _The Ancient Mariner_, saying the words aloud. People looked at her as they came downstairs. One lady said, "How do you do, Miss Moore?" but Augusta did not make any reply. At last we arrived at the very top of the house, and as there were no more stairs of any sort to go up, we had to pause here. "Now, which door are we to knock at?" I said. Augusta pointed to one.