"What became of Mr. Carmyle?" asked Lady Adela, ruthlessly interrupting another rhapsody. Dicky smiled vaguely, and rubbed his head. "Upon my soul, I don’t know," he confessed. "It’s the first time the matter has occurred to me. I expect he went home. He’s a resourceful old creature." "How did you dispose of the man with the umbrella, my boy?" enquired Mr. Mainwaring. "Ah," said Dicky, abandoning Carmyle to his fate, "that was where I did the bright thing. The fellow looked as if he made rather a hobby of this sort of game, and that gave me an idea. When he started amusing himself, I tapped him on the shoulder and said, right in his ear: ’Look here, my man, do you remember what happened to you the last time you were rude to a lady when you thought no one was with her?" Mr. Mainwaring rubbed his hands gently. "Well?" he said. "At that," continued The Freak with relish, "my sportsman went a sort of ripe gorgonzola colour, grabbed his filthy brolly, and slid heavily down the back stairs of the ’bus." "And what did you do then?" enquired Lady Adela. "I," replied Dicky triumphantly, "got up and took his seat and gave Tilly my umbrella!" "Ha! ha! ha!" crowed Mr. Mainwaring delightedly. "H’m! h’m! h’m! Honk! honk! honk!" he concluded hurriedly, coughing laboriously and patting himself upon the chest, as his consort turned menacingly in his direction. "And where did you part company?" asked Lady Adela. "Well," explained the culprit, "I offered to see her home. She was rather shaken up by what had happened." Lady Adela nodded her head as if she had expected this. "I see. And what did the young woman-- "Don’t you think, Mum dear, that you might start calling her ’lady’ now?" suggested Dicky gently. "--Say to that?" she enquired, without taking the slightest notice of the interruption. "She said she was n’t going home. She was out shopping, it seemed. In fact, she got down at a shop in Oxford Street. I insisted on her keeping the umbrella, though." "As a gift?" "No," said Dicky with a twinkle; "as a hostage." "And you gave her your address?" Dicky’s radiant countenance clouded for a moment. "Not quite," he said. "I meant to, of course; but I can’t have been quite my own calm self; for instead of giving her my own address, I asked for hers." "She gave it, I suppose?" said Lady Adela dryly. "No. She hesitated badly. I ought to have realised at once that I was not quite playing the game; but I was so mad keen to see her again that the idea never occurred to me. I simply thought she had forgotten where she lived, or something, and waited." "But finally," said Lady Adela, "the young--lady did confide her address to you?" Dicky nodded, and his mother continued:-- "Where does she live?" "Russell Square," said Dicky rapturously. "Russell Square? Ah! I know it. One drives through it on the way to Euston. In Bloomsbury, I believe?" said Lady Adela.