"You seem to have done pretty well out of it," remarked Entwistle. "It took some doing," confessed Peter. "I can recall a certain Christmas Eve when, with two other congenial spirits, I sat in a fireless attic in Town. We were literally on our beam ends--too jolly proud to sample the fatted calf that awaited us in our respective parents' homes. I think we had sevenpence halfpenny between us." "Sounds cheerful." "Precisely. However, being fresh-air fiends even in those days, we had left the window open----" "And some philanthrophic soul threw in a big parcel of provender?" "Into the attic window of a six-storeyed house? Hardly. No; a pigeon flew in. It never flew out again, for in less than twenty minutes it was roasting in front of the landlady's kitchen fire. That same evening one of

