"We believe they did!" gasped Orthodocia, and immediately looked out of the window again. I edged my chair toward the other window. Then the cloven foot appeared in the shape of a note-book. He produced it with gentle ostentation, as one would a trump card. The simile is complete when I add that he took it from his sleeve.

"How old is rady?" calmly, deliberately.

"I—I forget," falsified this historian; "forty-five, I believe."

The reporter put it down.

"Other rady, your friend,—not so old? Older? More old?"

"I am twenty-two years of age," said Orthodocia gravely, with a reproachful glance at me, "and I weigh ten stone. Height, five feet eight inches. In shoes, I am in the habit of wearing fives; in gloves, six and a half."

The reporter scribbled convulsively.

"Radies will study Japanese porryticks—please say."

"I beg pardon?"

"Yes." Fills another page.