more or less under his care Latimer performed Hague
Tribunal offices by draping a bath-towel over the provocative mirror, but
the ensuing peace was local and short-lived. The deflected energies of
the gamecock found new outlet in a sudden and sustained attack on the
sleeping and temporarily inoffensive pigling, and the duel which followed
was desperate and embittered beyond any possibility of effective
intervention. The feathered combatant had the advantage of being able,
when hard pressed, to take refuge on the bed, and freely availed himself
of this circumstance; the pigling never quite succeeded in hurling
himself on to the same eminence, but it was not from want of trying.

Neither side could claim any decisive success, and the struggle had been
practically fought to a standstill by the time that the maid appeared
with the early morning tea.

"Lor, sir," she exclaimed in undisguised astonishment, "do you want those
animals in your room?"

_Want_!

The pigling, as though aware that it might have outstayed its welcome,
dashed out at the door, and the gamecock followed it at a more dignified
pace.

"If Miss Vera's dog sees that pig--!" exclaimed the maid, and hurried off
to avert such a catastrophe.

A cold suspicion was stealing over Latimer's mind; he went to the window
and drew up the blind. A light, drizzling rain was falling, but there
was not the faintest trace of any inundation.

Some half-hour later he met Vera on the way to the breakfast-room.

"I should not like to think of you as a deliberate liar," he observed
coldly, "but one occasionally has to do things one does not like."

"At any rate I kept your mind from dwelling on politics all the night,"
said Vera.

Which was, of course, perfectly true.

THE UNKINDEST BLOW

The season of strikes seemed to have run itself to a standstill. Almost
every trade and industry and calling in which a dislocation could
possibly be engineered had indulged in that luxury. The last and least
successful convulsion had been the strike of the World's Union of
Zoological Garden attendants, who, pending the settlement of certain
demands, refused to minister further to the wants of the animals
committed to their charge or to allow any other keepers to take their
place. In this case the threat of the Zoological Gardens authorities
that if the men "came out" the animals should come out also had
intensified and precipitated the crisis. The imminent prospec