time, and
so, I think, will your cousin Haswell. Muzzle that old bulldog, Jackson,
somehow. No doubt he has his price like the rest of them, in meal or
malt, and you needn't stick at the figure. We don't want him hanging on
our throat for the next week or two."

Ten minutes later the splendid, two-thousand guinea motor brougham drew
up at the offices of the _Judge_ and the obsequious motor-footman bowed
Major Vernon through its rather grimy doorway. Within, a small boy in
a kind of box asked his business, and when he heard his name, said that
the "Guvnor" had sent down word that he was go up at once--third floor,
first to the right and second to the left. So up he went, and when
he reached the indicated locality was taken possession of by a
worried-looking clerk who had evidently been waiting for him, and almost
thrust through a door to find himself in a big, worn, untidy room. At
a huge desk in this room sat an elderly man, also big, worn, and
untidy-looking, who waved a long slip of galley-proof in his hand, and
was engaged in scolding a sub-editor.

"Who is that?" he said, wheeling round. "I'm busy, can't see anyone."

"I beg your pardon," answered the Major with humility, "your people told
me to come up. My name is Alan Vernon."

"Oh! I remember. Sit down for a moment, will you, and--Mr. Thomas,
oblige me by taking away this rot and rewriting it entirely in the sense
I have outlined."

Mr. Thomas snatched his rejected copy and vanished through another door,
whereon his chief remarked in an audible voice:

"That man is a perfect fool. Lucky I thought to look at his stuff. Well,
he is no worse than the rest, in this weary world," and he burst into a
hearty laugh and swung his chair round, adding, "Now then, Alan, what
is it? I have a quarter of an hour at your service. Why, bless me! I
was forgetting that it's more than a dozen years since we met; you
were still a boy then, and now you have left the army with a D.S.O. and
gratuity, and turned financier, which I think wouldn't have pleased your
old father. Come, sit down here and let us talk."

"I didn't leave the army, Mr. Jackson," answered his visitor; "it left
me; I was invalided out. They said I should never get my health back
after that last go of fever, but I did."

"Ah! bad luck, very bad luck, just at the beginning of what should have
been a big career, for I know they thought highly of you at the
War Office, that is, if they can think. Well, you have