h you could see yourself, trying to be
uplifting between the munches of a stolen bun. You'd laugh too. But
perhaps you never laugh," she added, straightening her lips.

"How d'you mean--laugh?" asked the Stranger. "I didn't know that noise
was called laughing. I thought you were just saying 'Ha--ha.'"

At this moment the Mayor came in. As I told you, he was a grocer, and
the Chairman of the committee. He was a bad Chairman, but a good grocer.
Grocers generally wear white in the execution of their duty, and this
fancy, I think, reflects their pureness of heart. They spend their days
among soft substances most beautiful to touch; and sometimes they sell
honest-smelling soaps; and sometimes they chop cheeses, and thus reach
the glory of the butcher's calling, without its painfulness. Also they
handle shining tins, marvellously illustrated.

Mayors and grocers were of course nothing to Miss Ford, but Chairmen
were very important. She nodded curtly to the Mayor and grocer, but she
pushed the seventh chair towards the Chairman.

"May I just finish with this applicant?" she asked in her thin inclusive
committee voice, and then added in the direction of the Stranger: "It's
no use talking nonsense. We all see through you, you cannot deceive a
committee. But to a certain extent we believe your story, and are
willing, if the case proves satisfactory, to give you a helping hand. I
will take down a few particulars. First your name?"

"M--m," mused the Stranger. "Let me see, you didn't like Hazeline Snow
much, did you? What d'you think of Thelma ... Thelma Bennett Watkins?...
You know, the Rutlandshire Watkinses, the younger branch----"

Miss Ford balanced her pen helplessly. "But that isn't your real name."

"How d'you mean--real name?" asked the Stranger anxiously. "Won't that
do? What about Iris ... Hyde?... You see, the truth is, I was never
actually christened ... I was born a conscientious objector, and
also----"

"Oh, for the Dear Sake, be silent!" said Miss Ford, writing down "Thelma
Bennett Watkins," in self-defence. "This, I take it, is the name you
gave at the time of the National Registration."

"I forget," said the Stranger. "I remember that I put down my trade as
Magic, and they registered it on my card as 'Machinist.' Yet Magic, I
believe, is a starred profession."

"What is your trade really?" asked Miss Ford.

"I'll show you," replied the Stranger, unbuttoning once more the flap of
her pocket.

*