only partly sprouted again. "Had two of you to listen in
on the Administrator!"

"Endorses you in blank, eh? How long would he let the
endorsement stand if he knew I was behind that screen while he
was talking to you?"

"Try him!" Grim suggested. "Shall I call him back? He doesn't
want to break you--told me so, in fact, last night--but he could
change his mind, I daresay. My tip to you is to get back to Ludd
as fast as your car can take you, release Catesby, and say as
little as possible to any one!"

"Damn you for a Yankee!" Jenkins answered. "You've got me
cornered for the moment, and you make the most of it. But wait
till my turn comes! As for you, sir," Jenkins turned and looked
me up and down with all the arrogance that nice new crossed
swords on his shoulder can give a certain sort of man, "don't let
me catch you trying to interfere in any Administration business,
that's all!"

I offered him a cigarette, grinning. There was no sense in
picking a quarrel. No man likes to discover that a perfect
stranger has overheard his intimate confessions. His annoyance
was understandable. But he hadn't nice manners. He knocked the
cigarette case out of my hand and kicked it across the room. So
I got into one of the deep armchairs and laughed at him in self-
defense, to preserve my own temper from boiling up over the top.

"To hell with both of you!" Jenkins thundered, and strode out
like Mars on the war-path.

"Poor old Jinks!" said Grim, as soon as he had gone. "As Sir
Louis said last night, he has a wife and family besides the
unofficial ladies on his string. All they'll have to divide
between them soon, at the rate he's going, will be his half-pay.
He has fought for promotion all his days, to keep abreast of
expenses. What that string of cormorants will do with his four
hundred pounds a year, when he oversteps at last and gets
retired, beggars imagination! However, let's get busy."

Business consisted in dressing me up as an Arab with the aid of
Suliman, and drilling me painstakingly for half-an-hour, both of
them using every trick they knew to make me laugh or show
surprise, and Grim nodding approval each time I contrived not to.
More difficult than acting deaf and dumb was the trick of
squatting with my legs crossed, but I had learned it after a
fashion in India years ago, and only needed schooling.

"You'll get scuppered if you're caught," he warned me. "If
Suliman wasn't so scared of devil