s room was situated.

He rang the bell for Webster.

"Is Mr. Mortimer playing that--that damned gas-engine in the
drawing-room?"

"Yes, sir. Tosti's 'Good-bye.' A charming air, sir."

"Go and tell him to stop it!"

"Very good, sir."

Mr. Bennett lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The
music still continued to roll about the room.

"I am sorry to have to inform you, sir," said Webster, "that Mr.
Mortimer declines to accede to your request."

"Oh, he said that, did he?"

"That is the gist of his remarks, sir."

"Very good! Then give me my dressing-gown!"

Webster swathed his employer in the garment indicated, and returned to
the kitchen, where he informed the cook that, in his opinion, the
guv'nor was not a force, and that, if he were a betting man, he would
put his money in the forthcoming struggle on Consul, the
Almost-Human--by which affectionate nickname Mr. Mortimer senior was
generally alluded to in the servants' hall.

Mr. Bennett, meanwhile, had reached the drawing-room, and found his
former friend lying at full length on a sofa, smoking a cigar, a full
dozen feet away from the orchestrion, which continued to thunder out its
dirge on the passing of Summer.

"Will you turn that infernal thing off!" said Mr. Bennett.

"No!" said Mr. Mortimer.

"Now, now, now!" said a voice.

Jane Hubbard was standing in the doorway with a look of calm reproof on
her face.

"We can't have this, you know!" said Jane Hubbard. "You're disturbing my
patient."

She strode without hesitation to the instrument, explored its ribs with
a firm finger, pushed something, and the orchestrion broke off in the
middle of a bar. Then, walking serenely to the door, she passed out and
closed it behind her.

The baser side of his nature urged Mr. Bennett to triumph over the
vanquished.

"Now, what about it!" he said, ungenerously.

"Interfering girl!" mumbled Mr. Mortimer, chafing beneath defeat. "I've
a good mind to start it again."

"I dare you!" whooped Mr. Bennett, reverting to the phraseology of his
vanished childhood. "Go on! I dare you!"

"I've a perfect legal right.... Oh well," he said, "there are lots of
other things I can do!"

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, alarmed.

"Never mind!" said Mr. Mortimer, taking up a book.

Mr. Bennett went back to bed in an uneasy frame of mind.

He brooded for half an hour, and, at the expiration of that period, rang
for Webster and requested that