"Cheer up, Jerry; she won't be long. Give the poor girl time to digest her luncheon." The cheerful one of the twain lit a cigarette; and in the process received the glad eye from a passing siren of striking aspect. "Great Caesar, old son!" he continued, when she was swallowed up in the crowd, "you're losing the chance of a lifetime. Here, gathered together to bid us welcome, are countless beautiful women and brave men. We are for the moment the star turn of the show--the brave British sailors whom the ladies delight to honour. Never let it be said, old dear, that you failed them in this their hour of need." "Confound it, Ginger, I know all about that!" The other man sighed and, coming suddenly out of his brown study, he too leant forward and fumbled for his cigarette-case. "But it's no go, old man. I'm getting a deuced sight too old and ugly nowadays to chop and change about. There comes a time of life when if a man wants to kiss one particular woman, he might as well kiss his boot for all the pleasure fooling around with another will give him." Ginger Lawson looked at him critically. "My lad, I fear me that Nemesis has at length descended on you. No longer do the ortolans and caviare of unregenerate bachelorhood tempt you; rather do you yearn for ground rice and stewed prunes in the third floor back. These symptoms----" "Ginger," interrupted the other, "dry up. You're a dear, good soul, but when you try to be funny, I realise the type of man who writes mottoes for crackers." He started up eagerly, only to sit down again disappointed. "Not she, not she, my love," continued the other imperturbably. "And, in the meanwhile, doesn't it strike you that you are committing a bad tactical error in sitting here, with a face like a man that's eaten a bad oyster, on the very seat where she's bound to see you when she does finish her luncheon and come down?" "I suppose that means you want me to cocktail with you?" "More impossible ideas have fructified," agreed Ginger, rising. "No, I'm blowed if----!" "Come on, old son." Lawson dragged him reluctantly to his feet. "All the world loves a lover, including the loved one herself; but you look like a deaf-mute at a funeral, who's swallowed his fee. Come and have a cocktail at Ciro's, and then, merry and bright and caracoling like a young lark, return and snatch her from under the nose of the accursed Teuton." "Do you think she's going to accept him, Ginger?" he muttered anxiously, as they sauntered through the drifting crowd. "My dear boy, ask me another. But she's coming to the ball dance on board to-night, and if the delicate pink illumination of your special kala jugger, shining softly on your virile face, and toning down the somewhat vivid colour scheme of your sunburned nose, doesn't melt her heart, I don't know what will----"