"The idea is not original," I said coldly, "but I am interested to know why you should select this particular moment rather than any other. What happened in '89?"
George looked faintly conscious. "Nothing," he answered. "That's just the point. It's what might have happened. I think you've never heard me speak of a girl called Emeline? Anyhow, I was rather struck at that time; we were staying in the same house that autumn, and I believe everybody expected me to propose. Only, somehow I didn't. But it was the closest shave I've ever had, and, as that was just twenty-five years ago, I began counting from then."
"Did Miss--er Emeline share the general expectation?"
"To be candid, I rather fancy she did. Several of her set were quite nasty about it afterwards, though it was obviously no business of theirs. She married somebody else later on, and lives in Ireland." George sighed reflectively.
As it was apparent that he would shortly become sentimental, a condition for which he is unfitted, I took my leave. "You're not really going to put that nonsense in the paper?" I asked.
"I am," said George, recovering abruptly. "If there is any way in which a put-upon bachelor can get equal with the world, I mean to take it. I regard it as a public duty. Look in again next week, and you'll see the result."
Curiosity brought me on my next visit to George with more anticipation than usual. The advertisement had duly appeared. But my inquiries found him oddly reticent.
"Look here, George," I said at length, "what did that paragraph produce?"
"I got stacks of letters, mostly humorous, that will require answering."
"One," answered George reluctantly, "from Emeline."
This was intriguing. George's manner with regard to it was discouraging, not to say morose. But I am not easily put off.
"Oh, handsome enough. A silver frame, quite good in its way, with a family group of herself and her husband and three kids inside it. I shall take that out."
The moment I had said it I saw that I had found the trouble.
"Only three words," answered George evasively. He hesitated. "But there, Emeline never did know how to express herself."
"George," I demanded sternly, "what were those three words?"
A brilliant reception is being prepared for Professor Hjalmar Stormbarner, the Finnish novelist, on the occasion of his first visit to England in June. An address of welcome, composed by Mr. C. K. Shorter and Sir Robertson Nicoll, with lyrics by Mr. Max Pemberton and Lord Burnham, will be presented to him at the Grafton Gallery, and Dr. Clifford is arranging what he happily calls a "pious orgy of congratulation" at the Caxton Hall, at which Sir Alfred Mond, Baron de Forest, and Mr. Thornton, the new manager of the Great Eastern Railway, will deliver addresses. A demonstration in Hyde Park in honour of our guest is also being organised by his English publishers, Messrs. Dodder and Dodder, at which their principal authors will speak at thirteen different platforms, and a resolution will be simultaneously moved by blast of trumpet that Professor Stormbarner is the greatest novelist in the world.