“He certainly is,” replied the doctor. “He’s done wonders with Hornaway’s. When he took the place over at the beginning of the war, they were telling me, it was a little potty concern making toy air guns or lead soldiers or something of the sort. And they never stop coining money now, it seems. Parrish must be worth millions ...” “Lucky devil!” said Trevert genially. “Ah!” observed the doctor sententiously, “but he’s had to work for it, mark you! He’s had the most extraordinary life, they tell me. He was at one period of his career a bartender on the Rand, a man was saying at the club the other day. But most of his life he’s lived in Canada, I gather. He was telling us the other evening, before you and Mary came down, that he was once a brakeman on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He said he invested all his savings in books on engineering and read them in his brakeman’s van on his trips across the Dominion. Ah! he’s a fine fellow!” He lowered his voice discreetly. “And a devilish good match, eh, Horace?” The young man flushed slightly. “Yes,” he said unwillingly. “A dam’ good match for somebody,” urged the doctor with a malicious twinkle in his eye. “Here, Doc,” said Horace, suddenly turning on him, “you stick to your bugs and germs. What do you know about matchmaking, anyway?” Dr. Romain chuckled. “We bacteriologists are trained observers. One learns a lot watching the life and habits of the bacillus, Horace, my boy. And between ourselves, Parrish would be a lucky fellow if ...” Trevert turned to him. His face was quite serious, and there was a little touch of hauteur in his voice. He was the 17th Baronet. “My dear Doc,” he said, “aren’t you going a bit fast? Parrish is a very good chap, but one knows nothing about him ...” Sagely the doctor nodded his grizzled head. “That’s true,” he agreed. “He appears to have no relatives and nobody over here seems to have heard of him before the war. A man was saying at the Athenaeum the other day ...” Trevert touched his elbow. Bude had appeared, portly, imperturbable, bearing a silver tray set out with the appliances for tea. “Bude,” cried Trevert, “don’t tell me there are no tea-cakes again!” “On the contrairey, sir,” answered the butler in the richly sonorous voice pitched a little below the normal register which he employed abovestairs, “the cook has had her attention drawn to it. There are tea-cakes, sir!” With a certain dramatic effect—for Bude was a trifle theatrical in everything he did—he whipped the cover off a dish and displayed a smoking pile of deliciously browned scones. “Bude,” said Trevert, “when I’m a Field Marshal, I’ll see you get the O.B.E. for this!”