newcomer, too, was stopped before he reached the counter, but not by
Mr. Scarrick or his assistant. A heavily veiled lady, whom no one had
hitherto noticed, rose languidly from a seat and greeted him in a clear,
penetrating voice.

"Your Excellency does his shopping himself?" she said.

"I order the things myself," he explained; "I find it difficult to make
my servants understand."

In a lower, but still perfectly audible, voice the veiled lady gave him a
piece of casual information.

"They have some excellent Jaffa oranges here." Then with a tinkling
laugh she passed out of the shop.

The man glared all round the shop, and then, fixing his eyes
instinctively on the barrier of biscuit tins, demanded loudly of the
grocer: "You have, perhaps, some good Jaffa oranges?"

Every one expected an instant denial on the part of Mr. Scarrick of any
such possession. Before he could answer, however, the boy had broken
forth from his sanctuary. Holding his empty brass bowl before him he
passed out into the street. His face was variously described afterwards
as masked with studied indifference, overspread with ghastly pallor, and
blazing with defiance. Some said that his teeth chattered, others that
he went out whistling the Persian National Hymn. There was no mistaking,
however, the effect produced by the encounter on the man who had seemed
to force it. If a rabid dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust its
companionship on him he could scarcely have displayed a greater access of
terror. His air of authority and assertiveness had gone, his masterful
stride had given way to a furtive pacing to and fro, as of an animal
seeking an outlet for escape. In a dazed perfunctory manner, always with
his eyes turning to watch the shop entrance, he gave a few random orders,
which the grocer made a show of entering in his book. Now and then he
walked out into the street, looked anxiously in all directions, and
hurried back to keep up his pretence of shopping. From one of these
sorties he did not return; he had dashed away into the dusk, and neither
he nor the dark-faced boy nor the veiled lady were seen again by the
expectant crowds that continued to throng the Scarrick establishment for
days to come.

* * * * *

"I can never thank you and your sister sufficiently," said the grocer.

"We enjoyed the fun of it," said the artist modestly, "and as for the
model, it was a welcome variation on posing for hours for 'The Lost
Hyl