"You must excuse me, Major Yeates," said Mr. M'Sweeny, chivalrously selecting me as the person to whom to present the business end of the transaction, "but I'm afraid I must trouble you about that little matter of the five pounds that we arranged a while ago--I couldn't go back without it was settled----" Mr. Goggin coughed, and looked at his boots; Stephen Casey sighed heavily. At the same moment I thought I heard the horn. "I'm afraid I haven't got it with me," I said, pulling out a handful of silver and a half-sovereign. "I suppose eighteen and sixpence wouldn't be any use to you?" Mr. M'Sweeny smiled deprecatingly, as at a passing jest, and again I heard the horn, several harsh and prolonged notes. Mrs. Knox leaned forward and poked me in the back with some violence. "Goggin will lend it to you," she said, with the splendid simplicity of a great mind. It must be recorded of Goggin that he accepted this singular inversion of the position like a gentleman. We moved on to his house and he went in with an excellent show of alacrity to fetch the money wherewith I was to stop his own mouth. It was while we were waiting that a small wet collie, reddish-brown in colour, came flying across the road, and darted in at the open door of the house. Its tongue was hanging out, it was panting heavily. "I seen her going over the hill, and the hounds after her; I thought she wouldn't go three sthretches before they'd have her cot," said M'Sweeny pleasantly. "But I declare she gave them a nice chase. When she seen the Doctor beating the hounds, that's the time she ran." I turned feebly in my place and looked at Mrs. Knox. "It was a very natural mistake," she said, again wiping her eyes; "I myself was taken in for a moment--but only for a moment!" she added, with abominable glee. I gave her but one glance, laden with reproach, and turned to M'Sweeny. "You'll get the five pounds from Goggin," I said, starting the car. As we ran out of Killoge, at something near thirty miles an hour, I heard scald-crow laughter behind me in the shawls. [Illustration: "I heard scald-crow laughter behind me in the shawls."] III THE FRIEND OF HER YOUTH It has come to this with me, I am not the country-house visitor that I once was. It is a sign of age, I suppose, and of growing unamiability; so, at any rate, my wife tells me. For my part, I think it indicates a power of discriminating between the things that are good enough, and the infinitely more numerous things that are the reverse. "Do you mean to say this isn't good enough?" said Philippa, putting down the novel that, at 11 A.M., she was shamelessly reading, and indicating our surroundings with a swing of her open parasol.