Celia's faith in me is very touching. I am not quite so confident about myself. No doubt I could protect her easily against five or six great brawny hulking porters ... armed with coal-hammers ... but I am seriously doubtful whether a dozen or so, aided with a little luck, mightn't get the better of me. "Don't let us be rash," I said thoughtfully. "Don't let us infuriate them." "You aren't afraid of a striker?" asked Celia in amazement. "Of an ordinary striker, no. In a strike of bank-clerks, or--or chess-players, or professional skeletons, I should be a lion among the blacklegs; but there is something about the very word coal-porter which----You know, I really think this is a case where the British Army might help us. We have been very good to it." The British Army, I should explain, has been walking out with Jane lately. When we go away for week-ends we let the British Army drop in to supper. Luckily it neither smokes nor drinks nor takes any great interest in books. It is a great relief, on your week-ends in the country, to _know_ that the British Army is dropping in to supper, when otherwise you might only have suspected it. I may say that we are rather hoping to get a position in the Army Recruiting film on the strength of this hospitality. "Let the British Army go," I said. "We've been very kind to him." "I fancy Jane has left the service. I don't know why." "Probably they quarrelled because she gave him caviare two nights running," I said. "Well, I suppose I shall have to go. But it will be no place for women. To-morrow after-noon I will sally forth alone to do it. But," I added, "I shall probably return with two coal-porters clinging round my neck. Order tea for three." Next evening, after a warm and busy day at the office, I put on my top-hat and tail coat and went out. If there was any accident I was determined to be described in the papers as "the body of a well-dressed man." To go down to history as "the body of a shabbily-dressed individual" would be too depressing. Beautifully clothed, I jumped into a taxi and drove to Celia's greengrocer. Celia herself was keeping warm by paying still more calls. "I want," I said nervously, "a hundredweight of coal and a cauliflower." This was my own idea. I intended to place the cauliflower on the top of a sack, and so to deceive any too-inquisitive coal-porter. "No, no," I should say, "not coal; nice cauliflowers for Sunday's dinner." "Can't deliver the coal," said the greengrocer. "I'm going to take it with me," I explained. He went round to a yard at the back. I motioned my taxi along and followed him at the head of three small boys who had never seen a top-hat and a cauliflower so close together. We got the sack into position. "Come, come," I said to the driver, "haven't you ever seen a dressing-case before? Give us a hand with it or I shall miss my train and be late for dinner."