It was twelve o'clock (noon) and I was sitting over the fire in our
squalid lodgings reading the attractive advertisements of country
mansions in a weekly journal. I had just decided on a delightful Tudor
manor-house with every modern convenience, a nice little park and
excellent fishing and shooting, when Betty burst upon me like a
whirlwind.

Her face was flushed and a fierce light shone in her usually mild
blue eyes. She looked like a Mænad or the incarnation of Victory at a
bargain sale.

"Come on," she gasped, seizing me by the arm. "Hurry."

"Good heavens! Is the house on fire? My child! Let me save my child."

"Oh, do come on," cried Betty; "there's not a moment to be lost."

"But how can I come on in slippers?" I demanded. "If I may not save
the young Henry Augustus, at any rate let me put on my boots."

Betty's only reply was to drag me from the room, hustle me through the
hall, where I dexterously caught my hat from the stand in passing, and
thrust me into the street.

"I've got a flat," she panted. "That is, I've got it if we're quick
enough. Hi, taxi!"

"But, my dear," I remonstrated as the taxi-driver, cowed by the look
in her eye, drew up to the kerb, "if we take a taxi we shan't have
anything left to pay for the flat."