"Impulsive dog," he said to himself. "Go to sleep, and don't forget that confidential secretaries afloat and confidential secretaries ashore are very different propositions. Yes, you thought you were being very clever when you bought those rope-soled shoes to keep your balance on a slippery deck, but you ought to have bought a rope-soled cap to keep your head from slipping." This seemed to John in the easy optimism that prevails upon the borders of sleep an excellent joke, and he passed with a chuckle through the ivory gate. The next day John behaved helpfully and politely at the Customs, and indeed continued to be helpful and polite until his companions of the voyage were established in a taxi at Euston. He had carefully written down the Hamiltons' address with a view to calling on them one day, but even while he was writing the number of the square in Chelsea he was thinking about Ambles and trying to decide whether he should make a dash across London to Waterloo on the chance of catching the 9:05 P.M. or spend the night at his house in Church Row. "I think perhaps I'd better stay in town to-night," he said. "Good-by. Most delightful trip across--see you both again soon, I hope. You don't advise me to try for the 9:05?" he asked once more, anxiously. Miss Hamilton laughed from the depths of the taxi; when she laughed, for the briefest moment John felt an Atlantic breeze sweep through the railway station. "_I_ recommend a good night's rest," she said. So John's last thought of her was of a nice practical young woman; but, as he once again told himself, the idea of a secretary was absurd. Besides, did she even know shorthand? "Do you know shorthand?" he turned round to shout as the taxi buzzed away; he did not hear her answer, if answer there was. "Of course I can always write," he decided, and without one sigh he busied himself with securing his own taxi for Hampstead. CHAPTER II "I've got too many caps, Mrs. Worfolk," John proclaimed next morning to his housekeeper. "You can give this one away." "Yes, sir. Who would you like it given to?" "Oh, anybody, anybody. Tramps very often ask for old boots, don't they? Some tramp might like it." "Would you have any erbjections if I give it to my nephew, sir?" "None whatever." "It seems almost too perky for a tramp, sir; and my sister's boy--well, he's just at the age when they like to dress theirselves up a bit. He's doing very well, too. His employers is extremely satisfied with the way he's doing. Extremely satisfied, his employers are." "I'm delighted to hear it." "Yes, sir. Well, it's been some consolation to my poor sister, I mean to say, after the way her husband behaved hisself, and it's to be hoped Herbert'll take fair warning. Let me see, you _will_ be having lunch at home I think you said?" John winced: this was precisely what he would have avoided by catching the 9:05 at Waterloo last night.