ehind the brass bars,
restrained her. Without further delay she made for the door of the
inner room. That was her objective, and she did not intend to be
diverted from it. Her fingers were on the handle before any of those
present divined her intention. Then the stenographer stopped typing
and sat with raised fingers, aghast. The girl at the telephone broke
off in mid-sentence and stared round over her shoulder. Ralph, the
office-boy, outraged, dropped his paper and constituted himself the
spokesman of the invaded force.

"Hey!"

Jill stopped and eyed the lad militantly.

"Were you speaking to me?"

"Yes, I _was_ speaking to you!"

"Don't do it again with your mouth full," said Jill, turning to the
door.

The belligerent fire in the office-boy's pink-rimmed eyes was suddenly
dimmed by a gush of water. It was not remorse that caused him to weep,
however. In the heat of the moment he had swallowed a large, jagged
sweet, and he was suffering severely.

"You can't go in there!" he managed to articulate, his iron will
triumphing over the flesh sufficiently to enable him to speak.

"I _am_ going in there!"

"That's Mr. Goble's private room."

"Well, I want a private talk with Mr. Goble."

Ralph, his eyes still moist, felt that the situation was slipping from
his grip. This sort of thing had never happened to him before. "I tell
ya he _zout_!"

Jill looked at him sternly.

"You wretched child!" she said, encouraged by a sharp giggle from the
neighbourhood of the switchboard. "Do you know where little boys go
who don't speak the truth? I can hear him playing the piano. Now he's
singing! And it's no good telling me he's busy. If he was busy, he
wouldn't have time to sing. If you're as deceitful as this at your
age, what do you expect to be when you grow up? You're an ugly little
boy, you've got red ears, and your collar doesn't fit! I shall speak
to Mr. Goble about you."

With which words Jill opened the door and walked in.

"Good afternoon," she said brightly.

After the congested and unfurnished discomfort of the landing, the
room in which Jill found herself had an air of cosiness and almost of
luxury. It was a large room, solidly upholstered. Along the further
wall, filling nearly the whole of its space, stood a vast and gleaming
desk, covered with a litter of papers which rose at one end of it to a
sort of mountain of play-scripts in buff covers. There was a
bookshelf to the left. Photographs covered t