he
Park side, underneath the shadow of the fence, and watch me go in. My
hansom will draw up at the door within a few minutes of eight."

The Babe and the Poet agreed to undertake the test.

"You won't mind our hanging round a little while, in case you're thrown
out again?" asked the Babe.

"Not in the least, so far as I am concerned," replied Jack Herring.
"Don't leave it too late and make your mother anxious."

"It's true enough," the Babe recounted afterwards. "The door was opened
by a manservant and he went straight in. We walked up and down for half
an hour, and unless they put him out the back way, he's telling the
truth."

"Did you hear him give his name?" asked Somerville, who was stroking his
moustache.

"No, we were too far off," explained the Babe. "But--I'll swear it was
Jack--there couldn't be any mistake about that."

"Perhaps not," agreed Somerville the Briefless.

Somerville the Briefless called at the offices of _Good Humour_, in Crane
Court, the following morning, and he also borrowed Miss Ramsbotham's
Debrett.

"What's the meaning of it?" demanded the sub-editor.

"Meaning of what?"

"This sudden interest of all you fellows in the British Peerage."

"All of us?"

"Well, Herring was here last week, poring over that book for half an
hour, with the _Morning Post_ spread out before him. Now you're doing
the same thing."

"Ah! Jack Herring, was he? I thought as much. Don't talk about it,
Tommy. I'll tell you later on."

On the following Monday, the Briefless one announced to the Club that he
had received an invitation to dine at the Loveredges' on the following
Wednesday. On Tuesday, the Briefless one entered the Club with a slow
and stately step. Halting opposite old Goslin the porter, who had
emerged from his box with the idea of discussing the Oxford and Cambridge
boat race, Somerville, removing his hat with a sweep of the arm, held it
out in silence. Old Goslin, much astonished, took it mechanically,
whereupon the Briefless one, shaking himself free from his Inverness
cape, flung it lightly after the hat, and strolled on, not noticing that
old Goslin, unaccustomed to coats lightly and elegantly thrown at him,
dropping the hat, had caught it on his head, and had been, in the
language of the prompt-book, "left struggling." The Briefless one,
entering the smoking-room, lifted a chair and let it fall again with a
crash, and sitting down upon it, crossed his legs and rang th