e of Upton,
or of unknown name, been admitted in the last forty-eight hours. Mullins,
however, looked as sympathetically depressed as though no news had lost
its proverbial value; and he had one of those blue-black faces that lend
themselves to the look, his chin being in perpetual mourning for the day
before.

"Don't go, Mullins! I've another job for you," said Eugene Thrush. "Take
the telephone directory and the London directory, and sit you down at my
desk. Look up 'chemists' under 'trades'; there are pages of them. Work
through the list with the telephone directory, and ring up every chemist
who's on the telephone, beginning with the ones nearest in, to ask if he
keeps d'Auvergne Cigarettes for asthma. Make a note of the first few who
do; go round to them all in turn, and be back here at nine with a box from
each. Complain to each of the difficulty of getting 'em elsewhere--say you
wonder there's so little demand--and with any luck you should find out
whether and to whom they've sold any since Wednesday evening."

"But surely that's the whole point?" suggested the ironmaster.

"It's the next point," said Thrush. "The first is to divide the chemists
of London into the Animals who keep the cigarettes and the Vegetables who
don't. I should really like to play the next round myself, but Mullins
must do something while we're out."

"While we're out, Mr. Thrush?"

"My dear Mr. Upton, you're going to step across into the Cafe Royal with
me, and have a square meal before you crack up!"

"And what about your theatre?" asked Mr. Upton, to whom resistance was a
physical impossibility, when they had left the sombre Mullins entrenched
behind telephone and directories.

"The theatre! I was only going out of curiosity to see the sort of tripe
that any manager has the nerve to serve up on a Friday in June; but I'm
not going to chuck the drama that's come to me!"

The ironmaster dined with his head in a whirl. It was a remarkably good
dinner that Thrush ordered, if as inappropriate to the occasion as to his
own weight. His guest, however, knew no more what he was eating or
drinking than he knew the names of the people in diamonds and white
waistcoats who stared at the distraught figure in the country clothes. It
even escaped his observation that the obese Thrush was an unblushing
gourmet with a cynical lust for Burgundy. The conscious repast of Mr.
Upton consisted entirely of the conversation of Eugene Thrush,