ess, and it must
be attended to. So he tried to banish the effects of the bad champagne
imbibed on the previous night with a stiff glass of brandy and soda, and
lighting a fresh cigarette, turned off the Strand and made his way to
the office.

"Guv'nor in?" he inquired of the solitary clerk, a sharp-featured,
Jewish-looking young man, who was sitting on a high stool with his hands
in his pockets, apparently unburdened with stress of work.

The youth nodded, and jerked his head backwards.

"Something's up!" he remarked laconically; "he's on the rampage."

Mr. Benjamin passed on without remark, and entered the inner office. It
was easy indeed to see that something had gone wrong. Mr. Levy was
walking restlessly up and down, with a newspaper in his hand, and
muttering to himself in a disturbed manner. At his son's entrance he
stopped short, and looked at him angrily.

"Benjamin, my boy," he said, rustling the paper before his face, "you've
been made a fool of. Scotland Yard have licked us!"

Mr. Benjamin yawned, and tilted his hat on the back of his head.

"What's up now, guv'nor?" he inquired.

His father laid the paper flat on the desk before him, and pointed to
one of the paragraphs with trembling fingers.

"Read that! Read that!" he exclaimed.

His obedient son glanced at it, and pushed the paper away in contempt.

"Stale news," he remarked shortly.

Mr. Levy looked at him amazed.

"Maybe you knew all about it," he remarked a little sarcastically.

"May be I did," was the cool reply.

"And yet you have let them be beforehand with us!" Mr. Levy exclaimed
angrily. "If this was to be done, why did we not do it?"

"Because we've got a better game to play," answered the junior partner
of the firm, with a hardly restrained air of triumph.

Mr. Levy regarded his son with a look of astonishment, which speedily
changed into one of admiration.

"Is this true, Benjamin?" he asked. "But--but----"

"But you don't understand," Benjamin interrupted impatiently. "Of course
you don't. And you'll have to wait a bit for an explanation, too, for
here's the very person I was expecting," he added, raising himself on
his stool, and looking out of the window. "Now, father, just you sit
quiet, and don't say a word," he went on quickly. "Leave it all to me;
I'll pull the thing through."

Mr. Levy had only time to express by a pantomimic sign his entire
confidence in his son's diplomacy before Miss Thurwell was announced.