"You take Willie," said Liss. "Here’s your half of the bread. Oh my, but I’m hungry! Good-bye, John dear! Marjorie, what are we going to do next?" Marjorie bent her brows judicially. "Let me see," she said. "I’ve tried the theatre, and they don’t begin rehearsing the new piece for a fortnight. It was no use trying the canteen, because it isn’t there any more—at least, nothing worth considering. And as it happens, I don’t know anyone else in any other canteen." "We haven’t got an account at any shop," continued Liss, "because we’ve always been to the cheap cash places. I don’t know a living soul in London, except my family; and if I go back to Finchley I know I’ll jolly well have to stay there for the duration." "And I," supplemented Marjorie, "know no one except Uncle Fred, in Dulwich. And I’d rather die than ask _him_ for help!" "No one at all?" exclaimed Liss. "Do you and I mean to sit here and tell each other that we know no one in London, except the people at the theatre, and the people at your canteen, and one or two dud relations? Why not call on your old Lord Eskerley?" Marjorie hesitated. "I don’t think I can," she said. "I have no particular claim—" "No claim? Didn’t you drive his silly old car in all weathers for nearly a year? Didn’t he tell you to come back and see him whenever you had time? It’s no use being modest when you’re starving. If you don’t go and see him, I shall." "Then I may as well tell you, dear," announced Marjorie, "that I have been already." "Why didn’t you say so before?" "I didn’t want to disappoint you." "Why? Were you chucked out?" "No. He’s away in Paris, on an indefinite mission. The butler was very nice about it, but he had no information as to when his lordship would be back. I hadn’t been entirely forgotten, though. There was a message for me. It had been lying there for weeks." "What did it say?" "It was just a scribbled note in an envelope with my motor licence, which I had left behind in the garage." Marjorie crossed the room to her little bureau. "Here it is! It says: _My dear late lamented Habakkuk,—I enclose your licence, which you have inadvertently left on my premises. No doubt you will need it again some day._ _With kind regards,_ _Yours sincerely—_ There’s a postscript," she added: _Apropos of motor licences, let me offer you a piece of advice. Always keep an adequate sum—say a pound or so—folded up and tucked away between the covers of the licence itself. This expedient, when you get held up in a police-trap, and the minion of the law examines your credentials, may obviate a public appearance before the local Beaks. Verb, sap.! Very useful. Don’t say I told you._ Marjorie laid down this characteristic effusion, and laughed.