"Oh, but this won't take up any room," and she held out a woollen helmet of the popular colour.
"Thanks awfully," he replied, drawing back, "but I never wear them."
"Of course you don't," she said; "they're not meant for tennis tournaments or the opera, but for the campaigner whose lodging is on the cold bare ground. In fact when once he gets it on he never wants to take it off again."
"From the look of it," he remarked, "it will be a case of Hobson's choice. You've underrated the size."
"I took your measurements last week," she said coldly.
"But that was before I joined the colours. You forgot to allow for subsequent developments."
"In any case the wool stretches," she observed. "Are you going to try it on?"
"It will play the very deuce with my hair," he objected.
"Very well," she said. "Dick shall have it."
"Never," he exclaimed, and snatching up the woollen object, began to ram his sleek head into the small aperture at the bottom.