"Well, so long!"

"So long!"

Linklater reached the door, and turned.

"It's a rum world, Pip," he said. "If you hadn't tumbled off that bar at that precise moment I should have been sacked."

"You would," assented Pip.

Then, as the door closed upon his friend, he turned to the wall, and murmured with a contented chuckle,—

"That's why I did it, my son!"


CHAPTER VI

Petticoat Influence