spectacles in three labour-saving movements: and with the aid of the last-named was enabled to perceive George.

"Oh, there you are!" said Hamilton Beamish.

"Yes," said George, "and...."

"What's all this I hear from Mullett?" asked Hamilton Beamish.

"What," inquired George simultaneously, "is all this I hear from Mullett?"

"Mullett says you're fooling about after some girl up-town."

"Mullett says you knew he was an ex-convict when you recommended him to me."

Hamilton Beamish decided to dispose of this triviality before going on to more serious business.

"Certainly," he said. "Didn't you read my series in the Yale Review on the 'Problem of the Reformed Criminal'? I point out very clearly that there is nobody with such a strong bias towards honesty as the man who has just come out of prison. It stands to reason. If you had been laid up for a year in hospital as the result of jumping off this roof, what would be the one outdoor sport in which, on emerging, you would be most reluctant to indulge? Jumping off roofs, undoubtedly."

George continued to frown in a dissatisfied way.

"That's all very well, but a fellow doesn't want ex-convicts hanging about the home."

"Nonsense! You must rid yourself of this old-fashioned prejudice against men who have been in Sing-Sing. Try to look on the place as a sort of University which fits its graduates for the problems of the world without. Morally speaking, such men are the student body. You have no fault to find with Mullett, have you?"

"No, I can't say I have."

"Does his work well?"

"Yes."

"Not stole anything from you?"

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