nterview go off?" I says. "Got anything interesting?"

"Yes," he says; "quite interesting. Oh, yes, decidedly interesting."

He was holding himself in, if you understand, speaking with horrible
slowness and deliberation.

"D'you know where he was last night?" he asks me.

"Yes," I says; "Caxton Hall, wasn't it?--meeting to demand the release
of Miss Clebb."

He leans across the table till his face was within a few inches of mine.

"Guess again," he says.

I wasn't doing any guessing. He had hurt me with the walnut table, and
I was feeling a bit short-tempered.

"Oh! don't make a game of it," I says. "It's too early in the morning."

"At the Earl's Court Exhibition," he says; "dancing the tango with a
lady that he picked up in St. James's Park."

"Well," I says, "why not? He don't often get much fun." I thought it
best to treat it lightly.

He takes no notice of my observation.

"A rival comes upon the scene," he continues--"a fatheaded ass,
according to my information--and they have a stand-up fight. He gets
run in and spends the night in a Vine Street police cell."

I suppose I was grinning without knowing it.

"Funny, ain't it?" he says.

"Well," I says, "it has its humorous side, hasn't it? What'll he get?"

"I am not worrying about what HE is going to get," he answers back. "I
am worrying about what _I_ am going to get."

I thought he had gone dotty.

"What's it got to do with you?" I says.

"If old Wotherspoon is in a good humour," he continues, "and the
constable's head has gone down a bit between now and Wednesday, I may
get off with forty shillings and a public reprimand.

"On the other hand," he goes on--he was working himself into a sort of
fit--"if the constable's head goes on swelling, and old Wotherspoon's
liver gets worse, I've got to be prepared for a month without the
option. That is, if I am fool enough--"

He had left both the doors open, which in the daytime we generally do,
our chambers being at the top. Miss Dorton--that's Mr. Parable's
secretary--barges into the room. She didn't seem to notice me. She
staggers to a chair and bursts into tears.

"He's gone," she says; "he's taken cook with him and gone."

"Gone!" says the guv'nor. "Where's he gone?"

"To Fingest," she says through her sobs--"to the cottage. Miss
Bulstrode came in just after you had left," she says. "He wants to get
away from everyone and have a few days' quiet. And then he is coming
back