"Never," I answered stoutly. "Your virility is in your way."

"Do you believe in dreams?"

"Not as a rule. But at two o'clock in the morning, alone with you in a Soho attic whose associations you've just pointed out, I'm not so sure."

"I'm having the same one every night."

"Oh! What is it? A woman, or merely a tartan cat with acetylene eyes?"

"It's a woman."

"Go and see her then. Nothing will exorcise it like that."

"But it doesn't. Oh, Prentice! it's no use beating round the bush. You must know. I mean the woman we've just been talking about."

I confess I had been rather thinking of the Continental Express at Charing Cross.

"Go ahead old man," was all I said. "It will do you good to tell."