The Soldier stared thoughtfully at the fire. “He was a first-class fisherman and a wonderful swimmer, was Giles Yeverley, and sometimes—I wonder. They say he got caught in a bore—that perhaps he got cramp. But, as I say, sometimes—I wonder. “I saw them—Jimmy Dallas, sometime Sergeant Trevor, and his wife—at the Ritz two nights ago. They seemed wonderfully in love, though they’d been married ten years, and I stopped by their table. “‘Sit down, Dog-face,’ she ordered, ‘and have a liqueur.’ “So I sat down and had a liqueur. And it was just as I was going that she looked at me with her wonderful smile, and said, very softly: ‘Thank God! dear old Giles never knew; and now, if he does, he’ll understand.’” The Soldier got up and stretched himself. “A big result for a bit of yellow peel.” _VI_ _The Writer’s Story, being The House at Appledore_ “I’M not certain, strictly speaking, that my story can be said to concern my trade,” began the Writer, after he had seen his guests were comfortable. “But it happened—this little adventure of mine—as the direct result of pursuing my trade, so I will interpret the rule accordingly. “My starting-point is the Largest Pumpkin Ever Produced in Kent. It was the sort of pumpkin which gets a photograph all to itself in the illustrated papers—the type of atrocity which is utterly useless to any human being. And yet that large and unpleasant vegetable proved the starting-point of the most exciting episode in my somewhat prosaic life. In fact, but for very distinct luck, that pumpkin would have been responsible for my equally prosaic funeral.’ The Writer smiled reminiscently. “It was years ago, in the days before a misguided public began to read my books and supply me with the necessary wherewithal to keep the wolf from the door. But I was young and full of hope, and Fleet Street seemed a very wonderful place. From which you can infer that I was a journalist, and candour compels me to admit—a jolly bad one. Not that I realised it at the time. I regarded my Editor’s complete lack of appreciation of my merits as being his misfortune, not my fault. However, I pottered around, doing odd jobs and having the felicity of seeing my carefully penned masterpieces completely obscured by blue pencil and reduced to two lines. “Then one morning I was sent for to the inner sanctuary. Now, although I had the very lowest opinion of the Editor’s abilities, I knew sufficient of the office routine to realise that such a summons was unlikely to herald a rise of screw with parchment certificate of appreciation for services rendered. It was far more likely to herald the order of the boot—and the prospect was not very rosy. Even in those days Fleet Street was full of unemployed journalists who knew more than their editors.