"Where?"
"To Holloway Gaol," explained Tim softly. "She is a Militant Suffragette. She tried to burn down Madame Tussaud's. I miss her very much," he added with a sigh. "She comes out about twice a week, under the Cat and Mouse Act. I meet her at the prison gate with sandwiches, but she never kisses me, because her mouth is too full. Will you?"
"It seems to me, Mr. Rendle," remarked Miss Jennings, biting her lip, "that you and I are wasting our time. I have some work to do for Mr. Meldrum. I'll trouble you to get out of this office into the show-room."
"Certainly, Miss Jennings," replied Timothy, striking an attitude. "Good-bye! I will face this thing like a man. I will fight it down. I shall probably go and shoot big game—in Regent's Park. May I send you a stuffed elephant? Or would you prefer a flock of pumas? I don't know what a puma is like, but the keeper will tell me."
The clatter of the typewriter drowned further foolishness, and Timothy departed to his duties. Here the incident would have ended, but for Miss Jennings's feminine inability to leave well alone.
"Haven't you got a young lady of your own?" she enquired one day of Tim, à propos des bottes.
"Yes," said Tim rapturously; "I have."
"Then, why—"
Timothy hastened to explain.
"Because I haven't met her yet. You cannot expect a lady to kiss you for your mother," he pointed out, "until you have spoken to her. The object of my affections lives in a castle in the air, and she has never actually come down to earth yet."