thousand pardons, Reginald Dimmock, after he had
glanced at the note, excused himself on the plea of urgent business
for his Serene master, uncle of the Grand Duke of Posen. He asked if he
might fetch Mr Racksole, or escort Miss Racksole to her father. But Miss
Racksole said gaily that she felt no need of an escort, and should go
to bed. She added that her father and herself always endeavoured to be
independent of each other.

Just then Theodore Racksole had found his way once more into Mr
Babylon's private room. Before arriving there, however, he had
discovered that in some mysterious manner the news of the change of
proprietorship had worked its way down to the lowest strata of the
hotel's cosmos. The corridors hummed with it, and even under-servants
were to be seen discussing the thing, just as though it mattered to
them.

'Have a cigar, Mr Racksole,' said the urbane Mr Babylon, 'and a mouthful
of the oldest cognac in all Europe.'

In a few minutes these two were talking eagerly, rapidly. Felix Babylon
was astonished at Racksole's capacity for absorbing the details of hotel
management. And as for Racksole he soon realized that Felix Babylon must
be a prince of hotel managers. It had never occurred to Racksole before
that to manage an hotel, even a large hotel, could be a specially
interesting affair, or that it could make any excessive demands upon
the brains of the manager; but he came to see that he had underrated
the possibilities of an hotel. The business of the Grand Babylon was
enormous. It took Racksole, with all his genius for organization,
exactly half an hour to master the details of the hotel laundry-work.
And the laundry-work was but one branch of activity amid scores, and
not a very large one at that. The machinery of checking supplies, and of
establishing a mean ratio between the raw stuff received in the kitchen
and the number of meals served in the salle a manger and the private
rooms, was very complicated and delicate. When Racksole had grasped
it, he at once suggested some improvements, and this led to a long
theoretical discussion, and the discussion led to digressions, and then
Felix Babylon, in a moment of absent-mindedness, yawned.

Racksole looked at the gilt clock on the high mantelpiece.

'Great Scott!' he said. 'It's three o'clock. Mr Babylon, accept my
apologies for having kept you up to such an absurd hour.'

'I have not spent so pleasant an evening for many years. You have let me