Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/541

[There will now be an interval of ten minutes, and we will rejoin the happy pair when their conversation becomes intelligible...]

"But you have not yet told me how you escaped, darling," went on Emilia, her voice sounding muffled and far away owing to the position of her face on Harold's breast.

"Simply enough," he replied. "As soon as the Commandant realised that I was a stamp-collector my trials were at an end. He said he could never conceive of a genuine philatelist being guilty of any other crime. And you, dearest," he asked tenderly, "how has it been with you under the terrible strain of my absence?"

In return Emilia made him acquainted with all that had happened, and when she described the final scene in the Brixton flat Harold was deeply moved. Now that Steinart, Magda and the pet snake were safely provided for he felt that the last obstacle to their immediate marriage was removed, and drew her even closer to his breast as he told her so.

Emilia answered with a troubled look. "You forget, dearest, that I am practically a pauper, that Steinart's Emporium is in dissolution, and that you are out of employment."

In the joy of their reunion Harold had forgotten these points, and now in utter despair he sat down heavily on the tin trunk.

Suddenly his eyes sparkled, he grasped a few dozens of the envelopes scattered over the floor and exclaimed, "My angel girl! We are saved! We are rich! What good spirit told you to preserve these German stamps? Why, every one of them is now obsolete. The German Empire exists no longer! All stocks of stamps in the post-offices were destroyed by order of the Allies as they advanced to Berlin, and the dealers are offering unheard-of figures for the few specimens that remain."

There is little more left to add.

Harold and Emilia disposed of the German Empire stamps for a princely sum. Their marriage took place immediately, and their lives, which had been so troubled, flowed on together in a happy dream of love.

*****

It is at the close of a golden Summer day that we catch our last glimpse of the devoted pair.

"Have you forgotten, dearest," says Emilia softly, "that Tuesday next is our darling little Harold's fourth birthday?"

'No," replies her husband. "I am just now thinking over what present we could give him."

"Only last week," Emilia returns, I found him trying to suck the stamp off an old envelope! Don't you think it is quite time the little dear had a stamp album of his very own?"

And Harold, with tears of happiness in his eyes, embraces the kindred spirit whose every finer impulse accords so sweetly with his own.

"Can you wonder that our statesmen sometimes make mistakes? Why, only yesterday I got into a 'bus that was going in the wrong direction!"

The hand that wrecks the cradle rules the world.

"Sir Edward Carson, in black, with black Trilby hat, looking very grave; Mr. Clavell Salter in a bowler hat;.... Mr. Hayes Fisher in an elegant green motor-car; and several members of Parliament almost hidden by khaki disguise, were among the first on the scene."—Evening Standard.

Mr. Hayes Fisher's remarkable costume was doubtless intended to distinguish him from the ex-Ministers "in the cart."

"It is still stated in certain circles professing to be well informed that Lord Fisher will return to the Admiralty as Fish Sea Lord."

Worcestershire Echo.

This is a fish-story that we decline to believe.