as the charmingly imbecile motto used to run, and to-night he was living up to it by bim-bamming away in a persistent _basso profondo_ that made an astonishing background of discord to the sound of frantic guitar playing which emanated from Lykeham's room. From the fury of his twanging I could tell that something more than usually cataclysmic had happened, for mercifully it was only in moments of the greatest stress that Lykeham touched his guitar. I entered the room with my hands over my ears. "For God's sake----" I implored. Through the open window Tom was shouting a deep E flat, with a spread chord of under- and over-tones, while the guitar gibbered shrilly and hysterically in D natural. Lykeham laughed, banged down his guitar on to the sofa with such violence that it gave forth a trembling groan from all its strings, and ran forward to meet me. He slapped me on the shoulder with painful heartiness; his whole face radiated joy and excitement. I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness. "You are perspiring," I said coldly. Lykeham mopped himself, but went grinning. "Well, what is it this time?" I asked. "Are you engaged to be married again?" Lykeham burst forth with the triumphant pleasure of one who has at last found an opportunity of disburdening himself of an oppressive secret. "Far better than that," he cried. I groaned. "Some more than usually unpleasant amour, I suppose." I knew that he had been in London the day before, a pressing engagement with the dentist having furnished an excuse to stay the night. "Don't be gross," said Lykeham, with a nervous laugh which showed that my suspicions had been only too well founded. "Well, let's hear about the delectable Flossie or Effie or whatever her name was," I said, with resignation. "I tell you she was a goddess." "The goddess of reason, I suppose." "A goddess," Lykeham continued; "the most wonderful creature I've ever seen. And the extraordinary thing is," he added confidentially, and with ill-suppressed pride, "that it seems I myself am a god of sorts." "Of gardens; but do come down to facts."