l
let me go on with my book, I don't mind driving a few poor fellows
now and then!'

The Squire looked at him critically.

'The fact is you're too well fed, Levasseur, or you look it. That
annoys people. Now I might gorge for a month, and shouldn't put on a
pound.'

'I suppose your household is rationed?'

'Not it! We eat what we want. Just like the labourers. I found an
old labourer eating his dinner under a hedge yesterday. Half a pound
of bread at the very least, and he gets as much for his supper, and
nearly as much for his breakfast. "I shall eat it, Squire, as long
as I can get it. There's nowt else _packs_ ye like bread." And quite
right too. Good word "pack."'

'What'll he do when he can't get it?' laughed Levasseur, taking up
his hat.

'Stuff! This food business is all one big _blague_. Anyway the
Government got us into the war; they're jolly well bound to feed us
through it. They will, for their own necks' sake. Well, good-night.'

Levasseur nodded in response, with the same silent, aimless grin,
and disappeared through the garden door of the library.

'Queer fellow!' thought the Squire. 'But he's useful. I shall get
him to help catalogue these things as he did the others. Ah, there
you are!'

He turned with a reproachful air as the door opened.

The westerly sun was coming strongly into the library, and shone
full on the face and figure of the Squire's new secretary as she
stood in the door-way. He expected an apology for an absence just
five minutes over the two hours; but she offered none.

'Pamela asked me to tell you, Mr. Mannering, that tea was ready
under the verandah.'

'Afternoon tea is an abominable waste of time!' said the Squire
discontentedly, facing her with a Greek pot under each arm.

'Do you think so? To me it's always the pleasantest meal in the
day.'

The voice was musical and attractive, but its complete
self-possession produced a vague irritation in the Squire. With his
two former secretaries, a Cambridge man and a spectacled maiden
with a London University degree, he had been accustomed to play the
tyrant as must as he pleased. Something had told him from the very
beginning that he would not be able to tyrannize over this newcomer.

But his quick masterful temper was already trying to devise ways of
putting her down. He beckoned her towards the table where she had
left her work, and she went obediently.

'You've got that line wrong.' He pointed to a quotation from t