“Here you are, Barge,” he said, handing it to him. “It’s not much out of your way. But I’m really most extremely grateful to you.” Whereat the lad slipped off, as shyly exultant as if he had made a hundred runs in a cricket-match.

There arose no obstacle, in the sequence of events that now occurred, to upset Christie’s prearranged plan. With the fly from the Three Peewits safely ordered for seven o’clock, Darnley and Wolf took their places at the Malakite tea-table; and a situation that certainly possessed elements of awkwardness flowed forward as smoothly and easily as if the girl had possessed a social genius worthy of the subtlest adepts of high society.

Mr. Malakite was himself unusually voluble during the earlier part of the meal, and Wolf’s attention was thoroughly arrested by the drift of the old man’s loquacity.