r should consult me about the solvency of clients I never
heard of. Faversham keeps bleating to me that the state of India is
dangerous. Well, for God's sake let him suppress every native paper,
shut up the schools, and send every agitator to the Andamans. I'll
back him up all right. But don't let him ask me what to do, for I
don't know."

"You think such a course would be popular?" asked a large, grave man, a
newspaper editor.

"Of course it would," said Vennard cheerily. "The British public hates
the idea of letting India get out of hand. But they want a lead. They
can't be expected to start the show any more than I can."

Lord Caerlaverock rose to join the ladies with an air of outraged
dignity. Vennard pulled out his watch and announced that he must go
back to the House.

"Do you know what I am going to do?" he asked. "I am going down to
tell Simpson what I think of him. He gets up and prates of having been
forty years in India. Well, I am going to tell him that it is to him
and his forty-year lot that all this muddle is due. Oh, I assure you,
there's going to be a row," said Vennard, as he struggled into his coat.

Mulross had been sitting next me, and I asked him if he was leaving
town. "I wish I could," he said, "but I fear I must stick on over the
Twelth. I don't like the way that fellow Von Kladow has been talking.
He's up to no good, and he's going to get a flea in his ear before he
is very much older."

Cheerfully, almost hilariously the three Ministers departed, Vennard
and Cargill in a hansom and Mulross on foot. I can only describe the
condition of those left behind as nervous prostration. We looked
furtively at each other, each afraid to hint his suspicions, but all
convinced that a surprising judgment had befallen at least two members
of his Majesty's Government. For myself I put the number at three, for
I did not like to hear a respected Whig Foreign Secretary talk about
giving the Chancellor of a friendly but jealous Power a flea in his ear.

The only unperplexed face was Deloraine's. He whispered to me that
Miss Barriton was going on to the Alvanleys' ball, and had warned him
to be there. "She hasn't been to a dance for months, you know," he
said. "I really think things are beginning to go a little better, old
man."

III

When I opened my paper next morning I read two startling pieces of
news. Lord Mulross had been knocked down by a taxi-cab on his way home
the nig