written back to say that Alan and he would move on to Eastbourne, as it did not matter a bit to him where he spent the next week. Mrs. Merivale added that, if it were convenient, Alan might stay on with Michael when his uncle left. By the same post came a letter from Merivale himself to say that he and his uncle Kenneth were arriving next day, and that he jolly well hoped Fane was going to meet him at the railway station. Michael, much excited, waited until the train steamed in with its blurred line of carriage windows, from one of which Merivale was actually leaning. Michael waved: Merivale waved: the train stopped: Merivale jumped out: a tall man with a very fair moustache and close-cropped fair hair alighted after Merivale and was introduced and shook hands and made several jokes and was on terms of equality before he and Merivale and Michael had got into the blue-lined fly that was to drive them to Captain Ross’s hotel. During the few days of Captain Ross’s stay, he and Michael and Merivale and Miss Carthew went sailing and climbed up Beachy Head and watched a cricket match in Devonshire Park and generally behaved like all the other summer visitors to Eastbourne. Michael noticed that Captain Ross was very polite to Miss Carthew and heard with interest that they both had many friends in common—soldiers and sailors and Royal Marines. Michael listened to a great deal of talk about ‘when I was quartered there’ and ‘when he was stationed at Malta’ and about Gunners and Sappers and the Service. He himself spoke of General Mace and was greatly flattered when Captain Ross said he knew him by reputation as a fine old soldier. Michael was rather disappointed that Captain Ross was not in the Bengal Lancers, but he concluded that next to being in the Bengal Lancers, it was best to be with him in the Kintail Highlanders (the Duke of Clarence’s own Inverness-shire Buffs). “Uncle Ken looks jolly ripping in a kilt,” Merivale informed Miss Carthew, when on the last evening of Captain Ross’s stay they were all sitting in the rubied light of the hotel table. “Shut up, showman,” said Captain Ross, banging his nephew on the head with a Viennese roll. “Oh, I say, Uncle Kenneth, that loaf hurts most awfully,” protested Merivale. “Well, don’t play Barnum,” said the Captain as he twirled his little moustache. “It’s not done, my lad.” When Captain Ross went away next morning, Miss Carthew at his earnest invitation accompanied the boys to see him off, and, as they walked out of the station, Merivale nudged Michael to whisper: “I say, I believe my uncle’s rather gone on Miss Carthew.”