. Still, it's a pity that I've got to gravitate between here
and Bolton for the next seven weeks. If I wasn't, I'd ask him for one of
those airships and I'd hunt John Castellan through all the oceans of air
till I ran him down and smashed him and his ship too!"

At this moment the butler came to him and informed him that his dinner
was ready and to ask him what wine he would drink.

"Thank you, Simmons," he replied. "A pint of that excellent Burgundy of
yours, please. By the way, have the papers come yet?"

"Just arrived, sir," said Mr Simmons, making the simple announcement
with all the dignity due to the butler to a millionaire.

He went at once into the dining-room and opened the second edition of
the _Times_, which was sent every day to Settle by train and thence by
motor-car to Whernside House.

Of course he turned first to the "Latest Intelligence" column. It was
headed, as he half expected it to be, "The Great Turning Movement: The
Enemy in Possession of Aldershot and advancing on Reading."

The account itself was one of those admirable combinations of brevity
and impartiality for which the leading journal of the world has always
been distinguished. What Lennard read ran as follows:

"Four months have now passed since the invading forces of the Allies,
after destroying the fortifications of Portsmouth and Dover by means
never yet employed in warfare, set foot on English soil. There have been
four months of almost incessant fighting, of heroic defence and
dearly-bought victory, but, although it is not too much to say in sober
language that the defending troops, regulars, militia, yeomanry and
volunteers, have accomplished what have seemed to be something like
miracles of valour and devotion, the tide of conquest has nevertheless
flowed steadily towards London.

"Considering the unanimous devotion with which the citizens of this
country, English, Scotch, Irish and Welsh, have taken up arms for the
defence of their Motherland, there can be no doubt but that, if the war
had been fought under ordinary conditions, the tide of invasion would by
this time have been rolled back to our coasts in spite of the admitted
superiority of the invaders in the technical operations of warfare, and
their enormous advantage in numbers to begin with. But the British
forces have had to fight under conditions which have never before been
known in warfare. Their enemies have not been only those of the land and
sea: they have had t