“Any one would confide in him.  His face is a surety,” said the Doctor.

“Go on, Walker!” The Admiral dug his elbow at him.  “You know my weak side.  Still it’s truth all the same.  I’ve been blessed with a good wife and a good son, and maybe I relish them the more for having been cut off from them so long.  I have much to be thankful for!”

“And so have I. The best two girls that ever stepped.  There’s Clara, who has learned up as much medicine as would give her the L.S.A., simply in order that she may sympathize with me in my work.  But hullo, what is this coming along?”

“All drawing and the wind astern!” cried the Admiral.  “Fourteen knots if it’s one.  Why, by George, it is that woman!”

A rolling cloud of yellow dust had streamed round the curve of the road, and from the heart of it had emerged a high tandem tricycle flying along at a breakneck pace.  In front sat Mrs. Westmacott clad in a heather tweed pea-jacket, a skirt which just{?} passed her knees and a pair of thick gaiters of the same material.  She had a great bundle of red papers under her arm, while Charles, who sat behind her clad in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, bore a similar roll protruding from either pocket.  Even as they watched, the pair eased up, the lady sprang off, impaled one of her bills upon the garden railing of an empty house, and then jumping on to her seat again was about to hurry onwards when her nephew drew her attention to the two gentlemen upon the footpath.

“Oh, now, really I didn’t notice you,” said she, taking a few turns of the treadle and steering the machine across to them.  “Is it not a beautiful morning?”

“Lovely,” answered the Doctor.  “You seem to be very busy.”

“I am very busy.”  She pointed to the colored paper which still fluttered from the railing.  “We have been pushing our propaganda, you see.  Charles and I have been at it since seven o’clock.  It is about our meeting.  I wish it to be a great success.  See!” She smoothed out one of the bills, and the Doctor read his own name in great black letters across the bottom.

“We don’t forget our chairman, you see.  Everybody is coming.  Those two dear little old maids opposite, the Williamses, held out for some time; but I have their promise now.  Admiral, I am sure that you wish us well.”

“Hum!  I wish you no harm, ma’am.”

“You will come on the platform?”

“I’ll be——­ No, I don’t think I can do that.”

“To our meeting, then?”

“No, ma’am; I don’t go out after dinner.”

“Oh yes, you will come.  I will call in if I may, and chat it over with you when you come home.  We have not breakfasted yet.  Goodbye!” There was a whir of wheels, and the yellow cloud rolled away down the road again.  By some legerdemain the Admiral found that he was clutching in his right hand one of the obnoxious bills.  He crumpled it up, and threw it into the roadway.