"If Miss Vera's dog sees that pig--!" exclaimed the maid, and hurried off
to avert such a catastrophe.

A cold suspicion was stealing over Latimer's mind; he went to the window
and drew up the blind. A light, drizzling rain was falling, but there
was not the faintest trace of any inundation.

Some half-hour later he met Vera on the way to the breakfast-room.

"I should not like to think of you as a deliberate liar," he observed
coldly, "but one occasionally has to do things one does not like."

"At any rate I kept your mind from dwelling on politics all the night,"
said Vera.

Which was, of course, perfectly true.




THE UNKINDEST BLOW


The season of strikes seemed to have run itself to a standstill. Almost
every trade and industry and calling in which a dislocation could
possibly be engineered had indulged in that luxury. The last and least
successful convulsion had been the strike of the World's Union of
Zoological Garden attendants, who, pending the settlement of certain
demands, refused to minister further to the wants of the animals
committed to their charge or to allow any other keepers to take their