Josiah felt a little dizzy as with carefully assumed coolness he turned to page five. There, sure enough, was Sally, looking rather fine drawn in her close-fitting khaki, but with that half-wicked down-looking smile upon her that he knew so well. With her leggings, and her square chin and her "bobbed" hair which hung upon her cheeks in side pieces and gave her a resemblance to Joan of Arc she was like an exceedingly handsome, but as they say in Blackhampton, a rather "gallus" boy. The hussy! He couldn't help laughing at the picture of her, it was so exactly how he best remembered her. The amused slightly defiant You-Be-Damned air was so extraordinarily like her. "Blame my cats!" said the Mayor. For several minutes it was his only remark. XXXVII The meeting of the Ways and Means Committee which had been called for a quarter past ten was of more than local importance. It was of national importance as the Mayor was careful to inform its members, among whom were the picked brains of the community, when he informally opened the business. But it was not until twenty minutes to eleven that he was able to do so. It was not that the Committee itself was unpunctual; it was simply that one and all had seen that morning's _Tribune_ and that the common task had perforce to yield for the nonce to their hearty congratulations. For one thing, the Mayor had become decidedly popular; for another, one more glorious page had been written in history by the Blackhampton born. It was really surprising the number of absolutely eminent people who at one time or another had contrived to be born at Blackhampton. In no city in England did local patriotism run higher, in no city in England was there better warrant for it. The Ways and Means Committee was quite excited. It was almost childishly delighted at having, as their Chairman, the rather embarrassed parent of one who, as Sir Reuben Jope, senior alderman and thrice ex-mayor, said in a well turned phrase, "bade fair to become the most famous woman in the Empire." Perhaps a certain piquancy was lent to an event that was already historical, by the knowledge in possession of those in the inner circle of municipal life that the Mayor had been hard hit by a former episode in the dashing career of Miss Sally. That episode belonged to the pre-war period when the stock of Mr. Josiah Munt did not stand nearly so high in the market as it did that morning. More than one of these seated round the council board with their eyes on the Chairman had relished the public chastening of the lord of Strathfieldsaye. He had been smitten in a tender place and they were not so sorry for him as they might have been. But other times other modes of thought. Since July, 1914, water had flowed under Sharrow Bridge. Nothing could have been more eloquent of the fact than the rather excited cordiality of the present gathering.