thought.

"I am not likely to forget any detail of my service to you," he said, with a pressure that tended in the direction of emphasis. "But we do not dine till half-past eight."

"The trains are very slow on that line, I believe," Mrs. Verulam added, with a vagueness as to the different railway systems that would have made her fortune as a director.

"Still, they do not take three hours to do the six miles," said Mr. Rodney, with a distinct approach to sarcasm.

Mrs. Verulam collapsed. There was no more fight[Pg 59] left in her. She shut her eyes very tightly and tried not to breathe hard. When she opened them again Mr. Rodney was looking at the tweed suit in a very crafty manner.

[Pg 59]

"I have heard much of you, Mr. Van Adam," he said slowly.

"Indeed!"

"Yes. I have even had the pleasure of writing a little word about you."

The tweed suit started.

"May I ask where?"

Mr. Rodney laid his long white hand gently upon the World.

"Here."

The word dropped from him like a pebble. The tweed suit flushed scarlet, and its dark eyes darted a look of boyish fury upon the demure writer of paragraphs. But it only said, in a voice that slightly shook:

"Indeed!"

"May I have the pleasure of showing you?" said Mr. Rodney, gently unfolding the journal for men and women, and laying one finger upon the Van Adam paragraph. The tweed suit pretended to read it carefully. "You will notice a slight mistake at the close," Mr. Rodney continued in a resentful voice, and glancing from the tweed suit to Mrs. Verulam and back again. "It would not have crept in" (errors have no other gait than that generally attributed to the insect world) "had I known that we were to have the unexpected pleasure of welcoming you to London."

"Thank you very much."

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