icked, rattled.

"Listen!"

Audrey and Elsie looked at each other with frightened eyes.

They heard a man's voice, loud, angry.

"Open the door!" it was shouting. "Open the door! I say, open the door!"

"Don't open the door!" cried Mrs. Stevens in a panic, as if it was her
door which was threatened. "Audrey! Elsie! Don't let him in!"

"Damn it, open the door!" came the voice again.

"We're all going to be murdered in our beds," she quavered. Terrified,
the two girls huddled closer, and with an arm round each, Mrs. Stevens
sat there, waiting.

CHAPTER II. Mr. Gillingham Gets Out at the Wrong Station

Whether Mark Ablett was a bore or not depended on the point of view, but
it may be said at once that he never bored his company on the subject of
his early life. However, stories get about. There is always somebody
who knows. It was understood--and this, anyhow, on Mark's own
authority--that his father had been a country clergyman. It was said
that, as a boy, Mark had attracted the notice, and patronage, of some
rich old spinster of the neighbourhood, who had paid for his education,
both at school and university. At about the time when he was coming down
from Cambridge, his father had died; leaving behind him a few debts,
as a warning to his family, and a reputation for short sermons, as an
example to his successor. Neither warning nor example seems to have been
effective. Mark went to London, with an allowance from his patron, and
(it is generally agreed) made acquaintance with the money-lenders.
He was supposed, by his patron and any others who inquired, to be
"writing"; but what he wrote, other than letters asking for more time
to pay, has never been discovered. However, he attended the theatres
and music halls very regularly--no doubt with a view to some serious
articles in the "Spectator" on the decadence of the English stage.

Fortunately (from Mark's point of view) his patron died during his third
year in London, and left him all the money he wanted. From that moment
his life loses its legendary character, and becomes more a matter of
history. He settled accounts with the money-lenders, abandoned his
crop of wild oats to the harvesting of others, and became in his turn a
patron. He patronized the Arts. It was not only usurers who discovered
that Mark Ablett no longer wrote for money; editors were now offered
free contributions as well as free lunches; publishers were given
agreements for an occasion