rned to
his office. A few minutes later Bindle knocked at the door and,
removing the blue-and-white cricket cap from his head, entered in
response to the manager's, "Come in."

"Wonder wot 'e's found out. Shouldn't be surprised if it was them
guns," muttered Bindle prophetically under his breath.

Bindle had been employed by the Depository for six months, and had
acquitted himself well. He was a good workman and trustworthy, and had
given conclusive proof that he knew his business.

The manager looked up from a letter he held in his hand.

"I've had a very serious letter from Sir Charles Custance of Little
Compton," he began.

"No bad news, I 'ope, sir," remarked Bindle cheerfully. "Brooks sort
o' shook 'im up a bit, accordin' to 'is own account." Brooks was the
foreman pantechnicon-man.

The manager frowned, and proceeded to read aloud Sir Charles's letter.
It recapitulated the events that had taken place at Little Compton,
painting Bindle and the foreman as a pair of the most desperate
cut-throats conceivable, threatening, not only them, but the West
London Furniture Depository with every imaginable pain and penalty.

When he had finished, the manager looked up at Bindle with great
severity.

"You've heard what Sir Charles Custance writes. What have you got to
say?" he asked.

Bindle scratched his head and shuffled his feet. Then he looked up
with a grin.

"Yer see, sir, I wasn't to know that they was as scared as rabbits o'
the Germans. I jest sort o' let an 'int drop all innocent like, an'
the 'ole bloomin' place turns itself into a sort o' Scotland Yard."

"But you sought out Sir Charles and"--the manager referred to the
letter--"'and laid before me an information,' he says."

"I didn't lay nothink before 'im, sir, not even a complaint, although
'is language when 'e come out o' the ark wasn't fit for Ginger to 'ear,
an' Ginger's ain't exactly Sunday-school talk."

The manager was short-handed and anxious to find some means of
placating so important a man as Sir Charles Custance, and, at the same
time, retaining Bindle's services. He bit the top of his pen
meditatively. It was Bindle who solved the problem.

"I better resign," he suggested, "and then join up again later, sir.
You can write an' say I'm under notice to go."

The manager pondered awhile. He was responsible for the conduct of the
affairs of the Depository, and, after all, Sir Charles Custance and the
others had been mainly