from the lethargy to which he had reverted.  “Mr. John Lavender passed a good night,” he thought, “but his condition is still critical.”  And in his disordered imagination he seemed to see people outside Tube stations, standing stock-still in the middle of the traffic, reading that bulletin in the evening papers.  “Let me see,” he mused, “how will they run?” To-morrow I shall be better, but not yet able to leave my bed; the day after to-morrow I shall have a slight relapse, and my condition will still give cause for anxiety; on the day following—­What is that noise.  For a sound like the whiffling of a wind through dry sticks combined with the creaking of a saw had, impinged on his senses.  It was succeeded by scratching.  “Blink!” said Mr. Lavender.  A heartrending whine came from outside the door.  Mr. Lavender rose and opened it.  His dog came in carrying her bone, and putting it down by the bed divided her attention between it and her master’s legs, revealed by the nightshirt which, in deference to the great Disraeli, he had never abandoned in favour of pyjamas.  Having achieved so erect a posture Mr. Lavender, whose heated imagination had now carried him to the convalescent stage of his indisposition, felt that a change of air would do him good, and going to the window, leaned out above a lilac-tree.

“Mr. John Lavender,” he murmured, “has gone to his seat to recuperate before resuming his public duties.”

While he stood there his attention was distracted by a tall young lady of fine build and joyous colour, who was watering some sweet-peas in the garden of the adjoining castle:  Naturally delicate, Mr. Lavender at once sought a jacket, and, having put it on, resumed his position at the window.  He had not watched her more than two minutes before he saw that she was cultivating soil, and, filled with admiration, he leaned still further out, and said: 

“My dear young madam, you are doing a great work.”

Thus addressed, the young lady, who had those roving grey eyes which see everything and betoken a large nature not devoid of merry genius, looked up and smiled.

“Believe me,” continued Mr. Lavender, “no task in these days is so important as the cultivation of the soil; now that we are fighting to the last man and the last dollar every woman and child in the islands should put their hands to the plough.  And at that word his vision became feverishly enlarged, so that he seemed to see not merely the young lady, but quantities of young ladies, filling the whole garden.

“This,” he went on, raising his voice, “is the psychological moment, the turning-point in the history of these islands.  The defeat of our common enemies imposes on us the sacred duty of feeding ourselves once more.  ’There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to——­Oh!” For in his desire to stir his audience, Mr. Lavender had reached out too far, and losing foothold on his polished bedroom floor, was slipping down into the lilac-bush.  He was arrested by a jerk from behind; where Blink, moved by this sudden elopement of her master, had seized him by the nightshirt tails, and was staying his descent.