Gave me quite a turn." "That," said I, with a smile, "was my friend Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos." "A friend of yours ?" "He had just been calling on me." "Then I wish you'd entreat him not to go downstairs like a six-inch shell.

I'll have a bruise to-morrow where the crown of his hat caught me as big as a soup-plate." I offered the cheerily indignant warrior apologies for my friend's parabolic method of descent, and suggested Elliman's Embrocation.
"The most extraordinary part of it," he interrupted, "was that when I picked him up he was weeping like anything.

What was he crying about ?" "He is a sensitive creature," said I, "and he doesn't come upon the pit of the stomach of a Colonel of British Cavalry every day in the week." He sniffed uncertainly at the remark for a second or two and then broke into a laugh and asked me to play bridge after dinner.

On the two preceding evenings he and I had attempted to cheer, in this manner, the desolation of a couple of the elderly maiden ladies.

But I may say, parenthetically, that as he played bridge as if he were leading a cavalry charge according to a text-book on tactics, and as I play card games in a soft, mental twilight, and as the two ladies were very keen bridge players indeed, I had great doubts as to the success of our attempts.
"I'm sorry," said I, "but I'm going down into the town to-night." "Theatre?
If so, I'll go with you." The gallant gentleman was always at a loose end.