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knows how he manages to think of all the rubbish he writes. Must be money in it, or such a man wouldn’t write it.”

James Harley was thirty-two. The doctor casually judged the hurrying man who talked to himself to be in his forties.

The doctor stepped into his car and drove away.

James Harley did not see him or the car which almost ran him down at the next street-intersection. James Harley had too much to say to himself to bother about his friends at the moment. He was going over all the old arguments, reviewing the whole position for The thousandth time, searching, searching for self-justification and failing to find it.

****

Harley had been interested when Grace had first mentioned that Patricia Weybourn had arrived in New Plymouth to establish a branch of Picotarde’s, the Auckland modistes, and had been curious to see the girl of whom Grace spoke so warmly.

“You’ll like her, Jimmy,” Grace had said. “All men do—and so do most women, when they know her. I warn you, she’s a flirt of the first water, but she has a heart of gold. There is no real harm in her. Pat, Buzzy Tennyson, Vera Lucas and I were known as the Live Wire quartette in Auckland in our young and giddy days———”

“You’re growing so old, aren’t you?” Harley had laughed. “But I can’t imagine you a Live Wire.”

“Why not? Am I so domesticated and subdued? Jimmy, one of these days I’ll break out and surprise you. Wait until you see Pat! ‘Birds of a feather,’ you know.”

“I know all about you, young lady. You’re such a fast young thing; and if this Pat of yours is of your feather I can hardly wait to see her. When is she coming up?”

“I’ve asked her to dinner on Thursday.”

“Fine! I must climb into a dinner suit for the occasion.”