to have got hold of an
idea that had not struck the squib-like boy downstairs, who was
entertaining the taxi-driver with descriptions of the domestic life of
the Sacks.

The lift stopped at what the twins supposed was going to be the door of
a landing or public corridor, but it was, they discovered, the actual
door of the Sack flat. At any moment the Sacks, if they wished to commit
suicide, could do so simply by stepping out of their own front door.
They would then fall, infinitely far, on to the roof of the lift lurking
at the bottom.

The lift-boy pressed a bell, the door opened, and there, at once exposed
to the twins, was the square hall of the Sack flat with a manservant
standing in it staring at them.

Obsessed by his idea, the lift-boy immediately stepped out of his lift,
approached the servant, introduced his passengers to him by saying,
"Young ladies to see Mr. Sack," took a step closer, and whispered in his
ear, but perfectly audibly to the twins who, however, regarded it as
some expression peculiarly American and were left unmoved by it, "The
co-respondents."

The servant stared uncertainly at them. His mistress had only been gone
a few hours, and the flat was still warm with her presence and
authority. She wouldn't, he well knew, have permitted co-respondents to
be about the place if she had been there, but on the other hand she
wasn't there. Mr. Sack was in sole possession now. Nobody knew where
Mrs. Sack was. Letters and telegrams lay on the table for her unopened,
among them Mr. Twist's announcing the arrival of the Twinklers. In his
heart the servant sided with Mr. Sack, but only in his heart, for the
servant's wife was the cook, and she, as she frequently explained, was
all for strict monogamy. He stared therefore uncertainly at the twins,
his brain revolving round their colossal impudence in coming there
before Mrs. Sack's rooms had so much as had time to get, as it were,
cold.

"We want to see Mr. Clouston Sack," began Anna-Rose in her clear little
voice; and no sooner did she begin to speak than a door was pulled open
and the gentleman himself appeared.

"I heard a noise of arrival--" he said, stopping suddenly when he saw
them. "I heard a noise of arrival, and a woman's voice--"

"It's us," said Anna-Rose, her face covering itself with the bright
conciliatory smiles of the arriving guest. "Are you Mr. Clouston Sack?"

She went up to him and held out her hand. They both went up to him and