ve your account of the affair.'

Now I thought he would have loved me for this, but he only replied in an
uncomfortable, uncoming-on voice, 'Oh, you would, would you?'

'Not if it's any trouble, of course,' I said. 'I can always get their
version from the defendants. Do either of 'em draw or sketch at all, Mr.
Wontner? Or perhaps your father might--'

Then he said quite hotly, 'I wish you to understand very clearly, my
good man, that a gentleman's name can't be dragged through the gutter to
bolster up the circulation of your wretched sheet, whatever it may be.'

'It is ----' I named a journal of enormous sales which specialises in
scholastic, military, and other scandals. 'I don't know yet what it
can't do, Mr. Wontner.'

'I didn't know that I was dealing with a reporter' said Mr. Wontner.

We were all halted outside a shut door. Ipps had followed us.

'But surely you want it in the papers, don't you?' I urged. 'With a
scandal like this, one couldn't, in justice to the democracy, be
exclusive. We'd syndicate it here and in the United States. I helped you
out of the sack, if you remember.'

'I wish to goodness you'd stop talking!' he snapped, and sat down on a
chair. Stalky's hand on my shoulder quietly signalled me out of action,
but I felt that my fire had not been misdirected.

'I'll answer for him,' said Stalky to Wontner, in an undertone that
dropped to a whisper. I caught--'Not without my leave--dependent on me
for market-tips,' and other gratifying tributes to my integrity.

Still Mr. Wontner sat in his chair, and still we waited on him. The
Infant's face showed worry and heavy grief; Stalky's, a bright and
bird-like interest; mine was hidden behind his shoulders, but on the
face of Ipps were written emotions that no butler should cherish towards
any guest. Contempt and wrath were the least of them. And Mr. Wontner
was looking full at Ipps, as Ipps was looking at him. Mr. Wontner's
father, I understood, kept a butler and two footmen.

'D'you suppose they're shamming, in order to get off?' he said at last.
Ipps shook his head and noiselessly threw the door open. The boys had
finished their dinner and were fast asleep--one on a sofa, one in a long
chair--their faces fallen back to the lines of their childhood. They had
had a wildish night, a hard day, that ended with a telling-off from an
artist, and the assurance they had wrecked their prospects for life.
What else should youth do, then, but eat, and dri