"Impossible, sir."

"And I've not told you all. Having said 'Oh, thank you so much!' she added: 'He is a naughty dog, isn't he?' You get the extraordinary subtlety of that, Mullett? The words 'He is a naughty dog' would have been a mere statement. By adding 'Isn't he?' she invited my opinion. She gave me to understand that she would welcome discussion on the subject. Do you know what I am going to do, directly I have dressed, Mullett?"

"Dine, sir?"

"Dine!" George shuddered. "No! There are moments when the thought of food is an outrage to everything that raises Man above the level of the beasts. As soon as I have dressed—and I shall dress very carefully—I am going to return to East Seventy-Ninth Street and I am going to ring the door-bell and I am going to go straight in and inquire after the dog. Hope it is none the worse for its adventure and so on. After all, it is only the civil thing. I mean these Scotch terriers ... delicate, highly-strung animals.... Never can tell what effect unusual excitement may have on them. Yes, Mullett, that is what I propose to do. Brush my dress clothes as you have never brushed them before."

"Very good, sir."

"Put me out a selection of ties. Say, a dozen."

"Yes, sir."

"And—did the boot-legger call this morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then mix me a very strong whisky-and-soda, Mullett," said George Finch. "Whatever happens, I must be at my best to-night."

4

To George, sunk in a golden reverie, there entered some few minutes later, jarring him back to life, a pair of three-pound dumb-bells, which shot abruptly out of the unknown and came trundling across the roof at him with a repulsive, clumping sound that would have disconcerted Romeo. They were followed by J. Hamilton Beamish on all fours. Hamilton Beamish, who believed in the healthy body as well as the sound mind, always did half an hour's open-air work with the bells of an evening: and, not for the first time, he had tripped over the top stair.

He recovered his balance, his dumb-bells and his 

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