club--to lunch, of course. I had no appetite, but I
was tormented by the idea of an interminable afternoon before me. I sat
idly for a long time. Behind my back two men were talking.

"Churchill ... oh, no better than the rest. He only wants to be found
out. If I've any nose for that sort of thing, there's something in the
air. It's absurd to be told that he knew nothing about it.... You've
seen the _Hour?_" I got up to go away, but suddenly found myself
standing by their table.

"You are unjust," I said. They looked up at me together with an immense
surprise. I didn't know them and I passed on. But I heard one of them
ask:

"Who's that fellow?" ...

"Oh--Etchingham Granger...."

"Is he queer?" the other postulated.

I went slowly down the great staircase. A knot of men was huddled round
the tape machine; others came, half trotting, half walking, to peer over
heads, under arm-pits.

"What's the matter with that thing?" I asked of one of them.

"Oh, Grogram's up," he said, and passed me. Someone from a point of
vantage read out:

"The Leader of the House (Sir C. Grogram, Devonport) said that...." The
words came haltingly to my ears as the man's voice followed the jerks of
the little instrument "... the Government obviously could not ... alter
its policy at ... eleventh hour ... at dictates of ... quite
irresponsible person in one of ... the daily ... papers."

I was wondering whether it was Soane or Callan who was poor old
Grogram's "quite irresponsible person," when I caught the sound of
Gurnard's name. I turned irritably away. I didn't want to hear that fool
read out the words of that.... It was like the warning croak of a raven
in an old ballad.

I began desultorily to descend to the smoking-room. In the Cimmerian
gloom of the stairway the voice of a pursuer hailed me.

"I say, Granger! I say, Granger!"

I looked back. The man was one of the rats of the lower journalism,
large-boned, rubicund, asthmatic; a mass of flesh that might, to the
advantage of his country and himself, have served as a cavalry trooper.
He puffed stertorously down towards me.

"I say, I say," his breath came rattling and wheezing. "What's up at the
_Hour?_"

"I'm sure I don't know," I answered curtly.

"They said you took it yesterday. You've been playing the very devil,
haven't you? But I suppose it was not off your own bat?"

"Oh, I never play off my own bat," I answered.

"Of course I don't want to intrude," he said ag