from which
you have just come."

"Any fresh warnings, eh?"

Norgate turned and walked by his friend's side.

"It is no use warning you," he declared. "You've a hide as thick as a
rhinoceros. Your complacency is bomb-proof. You won't believe anything
until it's too late."

"Confoundedly disagreeable companion you make, Norgate," the Cabinet
Minister remarked irritably. "You know quite as well as I do that
the German scare is all bunkum, and you only hammer it in either to
amuse yourself or because you are of a sensational turn of mind. All
the same--"

"All the same, what?" Norgate interrupted.

Hebblethwaite took his young friend's arm and led him into his club.

"We will take an aperitif in the smoking-room," he said. "After that I
will look in my book and see where I am lunching. It is perhaps not
the wisest thing for a Cabinet Minister to talk in the street. Since
the Suffragette scares, I have quite an eye for a detective, and there
has been a fellow within a few yards of your elbow ever since you
spoke to me."

"That's all right," Norgate reassured him. "Let's see, it's Tuesday,
isn't it? I call him Boko. He never leaves me. My week-end shadowers are
a trifle less assiduous, but Boko is suspicious. He has deucedly long
ears, too."

"What the devil are you talking about?" Hebblethwaite demanded, as
they sat down.

"The fact of it is," Norgate explained, "they don't altogether trust me
in my new profession. They give me some important jobs to look after, but
they watch me night and day. What they'd do if I turned 'em up, I can't
imagine. By-the-by, if you do hear of my being found mysteriously shot
or poisoned or something of that sort, don't you take on any theory as to
suicide. It will be murder, right enough. However," he added, raising his
glass to his lips and nodding, "they haven't found me out yet."

"I hear," Hebblethwaite muttered, "that the bookstalls are loaded with
this sort of rubbish. You do it very well, though."

"Oh! I am the real thing all right," Norgate declared. "By-the-by, what's
the matter with you?"

"Nothing," Hebblethwaite replied. "When you come to think of it, sitting
here and feeling the reviving influence of this remarkably well-concocted
beverage, I can confidently answer 'Nothing.' And yet, a few minutes ago,
I must admit that I was conscious of a sensation of gloom. You know,
Norgate, you're not the only idiot in the world who goes about seeing
shadows. For the firs