"You leave it to me," he said. "You leave it to me, and when you come
home from a happy outing I 'ope to be able to cross your little hand with
three 'undred golden quids."

"But why not tell me?" urged Mr. Teak.

"'Cos I want to surprise you," was the reply. "But mind, whatever you
do, don't let your wife run away with the idea that I've been mixed up in
it at all. Now, if you worry me any more I shall ask you to make it
thirty pounds for me instead of twenty."

The two friends parted at the corner of the road on Saturday afternoon,
and Mr. Teak, conscious of his friend's impatience, sought to hurry his
wife by occasionally calling the wrong time up the stairs. She came down
at last, smiling, in a plain hat with three roses, two bows, and a
feather.

"I've had the feather for years," she remarked. "This is the fourth hat
it has been on--but, then, I've taken care of it."

Mr. Teak grunted, and, opening the door, ushered her into the street. A
sense of adventure, and the hope of a profitable afternoon made his
spirits rise. He paid a compliment to the hat, and then, to the surprise
of both, followed it up with another--a very little one--to his wife.

They took a tram at the end of the street, and for the sake of the air
mounted to the top. Mrs. Teak leaned back in her seat with placid
enjoyment, and for the first ten minutes amused herself with the life in
the streets. Then she turned suddenly to her husband and declared that
she had felt a spot of rain.