A wave of emotion poured over Sam. Only yesterday he had been correcting the proofs of a short story designed for a forthcoming issue of Pyke’s _Home Companion_--_Celia’s Airman_, by Louise G. Boffin--and had curled his lip with superior masculine scorn at what had seemed to him the naïve sentimentality of its central theme. Celia had quarrelled with her lover, a young wing commander in the air force, and they had become reconciled owing to the latter saving her canary. In a mad moment in which his critical faculties must have been completely blurred, Sam had thought the situation far-fetched; but now he offered up a silent apology to Miss Boffin, realising that it was from the sheer, stark facts of life that she had drawn her inspiration. “You want her brought down?” “Yes, I do.” “Leave it to me,” said Sam. “Leave it absolutely to me--leave the whole thing entirely and completely to me.” “It’s awfully good of you.” “Not at all,” said Sam tenderly. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you--nothing. I was saying to myself only just now----” “I shouldn’t,” said Hash heavily. “Only go breaking your neck. What we ought to do ’ere is to stand under the tree and chirrup.” Sam frowned. “You appear to me, Hash,” he said with some severity, “to think that your mission in life is to chirrup. If you devoted half the time to work that you do to practicing your chirruping, Mon Repos would be a better and a sweeter place.” He hoisted himself into the tree and began to climb rapidly. So much progress did he make that when, a few moments later, Kay called to him, he could not distinguish her words. He scrambled down again. “What did you say?” he asked. “I only said take care,” said Kay. “Oh!” said Sam. He resumed his climb. Hash followed him with a pessimistic eye. “A cousin of mine broke two ribs playing this sort of silly game,” he said moodily. “Light-haired feller named George Turner. Had a job pruning the ellums on a gentleman’s place down Chigwell way. Two ribs he broke, besides a number of contusions.” He was aggrieved to find that Kay was not giving that attention to the story which its drama and human interest deserved. “Two ribs,” he repeated in a louder voice. “Also cuts, scratches and contusions. Ellums are treacherous things. You think the branches is all right, but lean your weight on ’em and they snap. That’s an ellum he’s climbing now.” “Oh, be quiet!” said Kay nervously. She was following Sam’s movements as tensely as ever Celia followed her airman’s. It did look horribly dangerous, what he was doing. “The proper thing we ought to have done ’ere was to have took a blanket and a ladder and a pole and to have held the blanket spread out and climbed the ladder and prodded at that there cat with the pole, same as they do at fires,” said Hash, casting an unwarrantable slur on the humane methods of the fire brigade. “Oh, well done!” cried Kay.