o doubt Maisie's husband found their selection
entertaining.

CHAPTER XII

THE LEGAL ACUMEN OF THOTHMES. OF COURSE IT WAS ISAAC RUNCIMAN'S
SIGNATURE. THE ANTIPODEAN INK. HOW LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS WAS MADE OF
WOOD. HOW GWEN AND HER FATHER CAME OFF THEIR P'S AND Q'S. THE
RIDDLE AS GOOD AS SOLVED. HOW GWEN GOT A LIFT TO CAVENDISH SQUARE
AND HER MOTHER WENT ON TO HELP TO ABOLISH SOUTH CAROLINA. ANOTHER
LIFT, IN A PILL-BOX. SAPPS COURT'S VIEWS OF THE WAR. MICHAEL
RAGSTROAR'S HALF-SISTER'S BROTHER-IN-LAW. LIVE EELS. BALL'S POND.
MRS. RILEY'S ELEVEN RELATIVES. MRS. TAPPING'S NAVAL CONNECTIONS.
OLD BILLY. RUM SHRUB. LOUIS NAPOLEON AND KING SOLOMON. A PARTY IN
THE BAR. WHICH WAY DID HE GO?

Said his lordship next morning to Mr. Norbury, bringing him preliminary
tea at eight o'clock:--"I want to catch Mr. Hawtrey before he goes to
Lincoln's Inn. Send round to say.... No--give me one of my cards and a
pencil.... There!--send that round at once, because he goes early."

The result was that Mr. Hawtrey was announced while the Earl was having
real breakfast with Gwen and her mother at ten, and was shown into the
library. Also that the real breakfast was hurried and frustrated, that
Mr. Hawtrey should not be kept waiting. For the Earl counter-ordered his
last cup of tea, and went away with his fast half broken. So her
ladyship sent the cup after him to the library. He sent a message back
to Gwen. Would her ladyship be sure not to go out without seeing him?
She would.

Mr. Hawtrey was known to Gwen as the Earl's solicitor, a man of
perfectly incredible weight and importance. He was deep in the Lord
Chancellor's confidence, and had boxes in tiers in his office, to read
the names on which was a Whig and Tory education. If all the acres of
land that had made Mr. Hawtrey's acquaintance, somehow or other, had
been totalled on condition that it was fair to count twice over, the
total total would have been as large as Asia, at a rough guess. His
clerks--or his firm's, Humphrey and Hawtrey's--had witnessed leases,
wills, transfers, and powers of attorney, numerous enough to fill the
Rolls Office, but so far as was known none of them had ever been called
on to attest his own signature. Personally, Mr. Hawtrey had always
seemed to Gwen very like an Egyptian God or King, and she would speak of
him as Thothmes and Rameses freely. Her father admitted the likeness,
but protested against