"Talking of the days that are no more," I began, stepping aside to avoid a stout lady carrying an inverted baby under one arm and an imperfectly draped rocking-horse under the other, "what has become--" "Hilda Beverley--eh?" replied Dicky cheerfully. "I’ll tell you all about her. (Don’t apologise, sir, really! After all, I still have an eye left, and you very nearly lost your umbrella.) She is engaged, if not married, to an Oxford Don. I believe they are very happy. They go out and sing an ode to Apollo every morning before breakfast, or something of that kind." A wedge of excursionists clove its way between us, and it was with a voice unconsciously raised that I remarked from the gutter:-- "You had an escape that time, my lad." "Not at all!" yelled Dicky loyally from the other side of the pavement. ("Mind that kiddie’s balloon, old son!) No," he continued, as we converged once more, "I had a very profitable six months. Hilda took immense pains with me, and it was n’t her fault that I turned out a failure." Presently I asked a question which always rose to my lips when I met Dicky after any considerable interval. "Have your family any fresh matrimonial irons in the fire for you at present?" I enquired. "No," replied my friend, "I rejoice to say they have not. The market is utterly flat. The Hilda Beverley slump knocked the bottom out of everything, and for the last half-year I have been living a life of perfect peace. I am settling down to a contented spinsterhood," he added, to the obvious surprise and consternation of a grim-looking female in a blue mackintosh who had become wedged between us. "In a few years I shall get a tabby cat and a sampler, and retire to end my days in the close of some quiet cathedral city." The female in the mackintosh, by dint of using her elbows as levers and our waistcoats as fulcrums, heaved herself convulsively out of our company and disappeared in the crowd, probably in search of police protection. Dicky and I came together again. "Occasionally," he continued fraternally, "I shall come and stay with you and Connie, and give you advice as to--Bill! Tiny! My son William! Look at that girl’s face! Did you catch her profile? Did you ever see anything so lovely in all your life?" We had reached that spot in the narrowest part of Piccadilly where all the omnibuses in the world seem to stop to take up passengers. Dicky’s fingers had closed round my left biceps muscle with a grip like iron. I turned and surveyed him. His cheery good-tempered face was transfigured: his eyes blazed. "Look!" he said again, pointing. He was trembling like a nervous schoolgirl.