"Gad!" the Colonel exclaimed, "I'll bet a guinea he has kissed her! Happy dog!" "Tra! la! la!" I answered. "I dare swear we shall not find Kitty in tears." The words were scarcely out of my mouth when the cab swerved to one side, throwing me against my companion. I heard our driver shout, and caught sight of a bareheaded man mixed up with the near shaft. The next moment we gave a lurch and stopped, and a crowd came round us. The Colonel was the first out, but I joined him as quickly as I could. "I do not think he is much hurt, sir," I heard the policeman say. "He is drunk, I fancy. Come, old chap, pull yourself together," he continued, giving a shake to the grey-haired man whom he and a bystander were supporting. "There, hold up now. Here is your hat. You are all right." And sure enough the man, whose red nose and shabby attire lent probability to the policeman's charge, managed when left to himself to keep his balance; but with some wavering. "Hallo!" he muttered, looking uncertainly upon the crowd round him. "Is my son here to take me home? Isaac? Where is Isaac?" "He's one part shaken," the policeman said, viewing him with an air of experience. "And three parts drunk. He had better go to the station." "Where do you live?" the Colonel asked. "Greek Street, Soho, number twenty-seven, top floor"--this was answered glibly enough. "And I'll tell you what," the man added with a drunken hiccough and a reel which left him on the policeman's shoulder--"if any gentleman will take another gentleman home, I will make him rich beyond the dreams of avarice. I'll present him his weight in gold. That I will. His weight in gold!" "I think----" the Colonel began, turning and meeting my eye. "His weight in gold!" murmured the drunken man. "Quite so!" I said, accepting the Colonel's unspoken suggestion. "We will see him home, policeman." And paying our cabman, I hailed a crawling four-wheeler, into which the officer bundled our man. We got in, and in a moment were jolting eastwards at a snail's pace. "Perhaps we might have sent some one with him," the Colonel said, looking at me apologetically. "Not at all!" I answered. I have no doubt that we both had the same feeling, that, happy ourselves, it behooved us to do a good turn to this poor wretch, whose shaking hands and tattered clothes showed that he had almost reached the bottom of the hill. I have seen more than one brother officer, once as gallant a lad as Jim, brought as low; and, perhaps, but for Providence, old Joe Bratton himself---- But there, it may have been some such thought as this, or it may have been an extra glass of sherry at lunch, made us take the man home. We did it; and the Lord only knows why fellows do things--good or bad.