“Back in London. Ukridge told me that you had gone to sea again.” “Say, mister,” exclaimed Mr. Billson, for the first time seeming to show real interest in my remarks, “you seen ’im lately?” “Ukridge? Oh, yes, I see him nearly every day.” “I been tryin’ to find ’im.” “I can give you his address,” I said. And I wrote it down on the back of an envelope. Then, having shaken his hand, I thanked him once more for his courteous assistance and borrowed my fare back to Civilisation on the Underground, and we parted with mutual expressions of good will. The next step in the march of events was what I shall call the Episode of the Inexplicable Female. It occurred two days later. Returning shortly after lunch to my rooms in Ebury Street, I was met in the hall by Mrs. Bowles, my landlord’s wife. I greeted her a trifle nervously, for, like her husband, she always exercised a rather oppressive effect on me. She lacked Bowles’s ambassadorial dignity, but made up for it by a manner so peculiarly sepulchral that strong men quailed before her pale gaze. Scotch by birth, she had an eye that looked as if it was for ever searching for astral bodies wrapped in winding-sheets—this, I believe, being a favourite indoor sport among certain sets in North Britain. “Sir,” said Mrs. Bowles, “there is a body in your sitting-room.” “A body!” I am bound to say that this Phillips-Oppenheim-like opening to the conversation gave me something of a shock. Then I remembered her nationality. “Oh, you mean a man?” “A woman,” corrected Mrs. Bowles. “A body in a pink hat.” I was conscious of a feeling of guilt. In this pure and modest house, female bodies in pink hats seemed to require explanation. I felt that the correct thing to do would have been to call upon Heaven to witness that this woman was nothing to me, nothing. “I was to give you this letter, sir.” I took it and opened the envelope with a sigh. I had recognised the handwriting of Ukridge, and for the hundredth time in our close acquaintanceship there smote me like a blow the sad suspicion that this man had once more gone and wished upon me some frightful thing. “My dear old Horse,— “It’s not often I ask you to do anything for me... I laughed hollowly. “My dear old Horse,— “It’s not often I ask you to do anything for me, laddie, but I beg and implore you to rally round now and show yourself the true friend I know you are. The one thing I’ve always said about you, Corky my boy, is that you’re a real pal who never lets a fellow down. “The bearer of this—a delightful woman, you’ll like her—is Flossie’s mother. She’s up for the day by excursion from the North, and it is absolutely vital that she be lushed up and seen off at Euston at six-forty-five. I can’t look after her myself, as unfortunately I’m laid up with a sprained ankle. Otherwise I wouldn’t trouble you.