“Well, I have. It was at Midways, when I was nine. I had borrowed it from the page boy, who was a great friend of mine, and it was about a man called Cincinnati Kit, who went round most of the time in a mask, with lots of revolvers. I had just got half-way in it when my governess caught me and I was sent to bed and the book was burned. So I never found out what happened in the little room with the steel walls behind the bar at the Blue Gulch Saloon. I didn’t get over the disappointment for years. Well, when you told me you were going away, I suddenly realised that this awful thing was on the point of happening to me again, and this time I knew I would never get over it. It suddenly flashed upon me that there was absolutely nothing worth while in life except to be with you and watch you and wonder what perfectly mad thing you would be up to next. Would Aunt Ysobel say that that was love?” “She would,” said Sam with conviction. “Well, it’s my form of it, anyhow. I just want to be with you for years and years and years, wondering what you’re going to do next.” “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do at this moment,” said Sam. “I’m going to kiss you.” Time passed. “Kay,” said Sam. “Yes?” “Do you know---- No, you’ll laugh.” “I promise I won’t. What were you going to say?” “That photograph of you--the one I found in the fishing hut.” “What about it?” “I kissed it once.” “Only once?” “No,” said Sam stoutly. “If you really want the truth, every day; every blessed single day, and several times a day. Now laugh!” “No; I’m going to laugh at you all the rest of my life, but not to-night. You’re a darling, and I suppose,” said Kay thoughtfully, “I’d better go and tell uncle so, hadn’t I, if he has got back?” “Tell your uncle?” “Well, he likes to know what’s going on around him in the home.” “But that means that you’ll have to go in.” “Only for a minute. I shall just pop my head in at the door and say ‘Oh, uncle, talking of Sam, I love him.’” “Look here,” said Sam earnestly, “if you will swear on your word of honour--your sacred word of honour--not to be gone more than thirty seconds----” “As if I could keep away from you longer than that!” said Kay. Left alone in a bleak world, Sam found his thoughts taking for a while a sombre turn. In the exhilaration of the recent miracle which had altered the whole face of the planet, he had tended somewhat to overlook the fact that for a man about to enter upon the sacred state of matrimony he was a little ill equipped with the means of supporting a home. His weekly salary was in his pocket, and a small sum stood to his credit in a Lombard Street bank; but he could not, he realised, be considered an exceptionally good match for the least exacting of girls. Indeed, at the moment, like the gentleman in the song, all he was in a position to offer his bride was a happy disposition and a wild desire to succeed.