ll see you in ten minutes, if you can wait, sir."

"I'll wait," said Bob, sitting down upon a high stool. "Got a paper?"

"To-day's Times is here, sir." He whisked off, to return in a moment
with the paper, neatly folded.

"You'll find a more comfortable seat behind the screen, sir."

"Thanks," said Bob, regarding him with interest--he was so dapper, so
alert, so all that an office-boy in a staid lawyer's establishment ought
to be. "How old might you be?"

"Fourteen, sir."

"And are you going to grow into a lawyer?"

"I'm afraid I'll never do that, sir," said the office-boy gravely. "I
may be head clerk, perhaps. But--" he stopped, confused.

"But what?"

"I'd rather fly, sir, than anything in the world!" He looked
worshippingly at Bob's uniform. "If the war had only not stopped before
I was old enough, I might have had a chance!"

"Oh, you'll have plenty of chances," Bob told him consolingly. "In five
years' time you'll be taking Mr. M'Clinton's confidential papers across
to Paris in an aeroplane--and bringing him back a reply before lunch!"

"Do you think so, sir?" The office-boy's eyes danced. Suddenly he
resumed his professional gravity.

"I must get back to my work, sir." He disappeared behind another
partition; the office seemed to Bob to be divided into water-tight
compartments, in each of which he imagined that a budding lawyer or head
clerk was being brought up by hand. It was all rather grim and solid and
forbidding. To Bob the law had always been full of mystery; this grey,
silent office, in the heart of the city, was a fitting place for it.
He felt a little chill at his heart, a foreboding that no comfort could
come of his mission there.

The inner door opened, after a little while, and a woman in black came
out. She passed hurriedly through the outer office, pulling down her
veil over a face that showed traces of tears. Bob looked after her
compassionately.

"Poor soul!" he thought. "She's had her gruel, evidently. Now I suppose
I'll get mine."

A bell whirred sharply. The alert office-boy sprang to the summons,
returning immediately.

"Mr. M'Clinton can see you now, sir."

Bob followed him through the oaken door, and along a narrow passage to a
room where a spare, grizzled man sat at a huge roll-top desk. He rose as
the boy shut the door behind his visitor.

"Well, Captain Rainham. How do you do?"

Bob gripped the lean hand offered him--it felt like a claw in his great
palm. Then h