After luncheon Dicky suggested that I should walk round with him to his chambers in Bolton Street. It was a murky December afternoon. Christmas shopping had set in with its usual severity, and visitors from the country, armed with sharp-cornered parcels, surged tumultuously along the wrong side of every pavement, while the ordinary citizens of London trudged resignedly in the gutter.
Dicky, quite undisturbed by the press, continued the conversation.
"Yes, the family are all very fit," he said. "You must come and stay with us. I shall give myself a week's holiday at Christmas and take you and Connie down to Shotley Beauchamp, and we will have a pop at Ethelbert, our pheasant, and discuss the days that are no more."
"Talking of the days that are no more," I began, stepping aside to avoid a stout lady carrying an inverted baby under one arm and an imperfectly draped rocking-horse under the other, "what has become--"
"Hilda Beverley--eh?" replied Dicky cheerfully. "I'll tell you all about her. (Don't apologise, sir, really! After all, I still have an eye left, and you very nearly lost your umbrella.) She is engaged, if not married, to an Oxford Don. I believe they are very happy. They go out and sing an ode to Apollo every morning before breakfast, or something of that kind."
A wedge of excursionists clove its way between us, and it was with a voice unconsciously raised that I remarked from the gutter:--
"You had an escape that time, my lad."
"Not at all!" yelled Dicky loyally from the other side of the pavement. ("Mind that kiddie's balloon, old son!) No," he continued, as we converged once more, "I had a very profitable six months. Hilda took immense pains with me, and it was n't her fault that I turned out a failure."
Presently I asked a question which always rose to my lips when I met Dicky after any considerable interval.
"Have your family any fresh matrimonial irons in the fire for you at present?" I enquired.