guardian came out with the huge red volume, which
Miss Baxter placed on her knees, and, with a celerity that comes of long
practice, turned over the leaves rapidly, running her finger quickly
down the H column, in which the name "Hazel" was to be found. At last
she came to one designated as being a clerk in the office of the Board
of Public Construction, and his residence was 17, Rupert Square,
Brixton. She put this address down in her notebook and handed back the
volume to the waiting watchman, as the editor came out with the cheque
in his hand.

The shrewd and energetic dealer in coins, whose little office stands at
the exit from Charing Cross Station, proved quite willing to oblige the
editor of the _Evening Graphite_ with fifty sovereigns in exchange for
the bit of paper, and the editor, handing to Miss Jennie the envelope
containing the gold, saw her drive off for Brixton, while he turned, not
to resume his game of dominoes at the cafe, but to his office, to write
the leader which would express in good set terms the horror he felt at
the action of the Board of Public Construction.

CHAPTER III. JENNIE INTERVIEWS A FRIGHTENED OFFICIAL.
It was a little past seven o'clock when Miss Baxter's hansom drove up to
the two-storeyed house in Rupert Square numbered 17. She knocked at the
door, and it was speedily opened by a man with some trace of anxiety on
his clouded face, who proved to be Hazel himself, the clerk at the Board
of Public Construction. "You are Mr. Hazel?" she ventured, on entering.

"Yes," replied the man, quite evidently surprised at seeing a lady
instead of the man he was expecting at that hour; "but I am afraid I
shall have to ask you to excuse me; I am waiting for a visitor who is a
few minutes late, and who may be here at any moment."

"You are waiting for Mr. Alder, are you not?"

"Yes," stammered the man, his expression of surprise giving place to one
of consternation.

"Oh, well, that is all right," said Miss Jennie, reassuringly. "I have
just driven from the office of the _Daily Bugle_. Mr. Alder cannot come
to-night."

"Ah," said Hazel, closing the door. "Then are you here in his place?"

"I am here instead of him. Mr. Alder is on other business that he had to
attend to at the editor's request. Now, Mr. Hardwick--that's the editor,
you know----"

"Yes, I know," answered Hazel.

They were by this time seated in the front parlour.

"Well, Mr. Hardwick is very anxious that the figu