dmired this pluck. Composing for himself an
innocent face, he opened a door, and went in with the assurance of a nice
and privileged child. And presently he reappeared, with a nod to the
Assistant Commissioner, who passing through the same door left open for
him, found himself with the great personage in a large room.

Vast in bulk and stature, with a long white face, which, broadened at the
base by a big double chin, appeared egg-shaped in the fringe of thin
greyish whisker, the great personage seemed an expanding man.
Unfortunate from a tailoring point of view, the cross-folds in the middle
of a buttoned black coat added to the impression, as if the fastenings of
the garment were tried to the utmost. From the head, set upward on a
thick neck, the eyes, with puffy lower lids, stared with a haughty droop
on each side of a hooked aggressive nose, nobly salient in the vast pale
circumference of the face. A shiny silk hat and a pair of worn gloves
lying ready on the end of a long table looked expanded too, enormous.

He stood on the hearthrug in big, roomy boots, and uttered no word of
greeting.

"I would like to know if this is the beginning of another dynamite
campaign," he asked at once in a deep, very smooth voice. "Don't go into
details. I have no time for that."

The Assistant Commissioner's figure before this big and rustic Presence
had the frail slenderness of a reed addresssing an oak. And indeed the
unbroken record of that man's descent surpassed in the number of
centuries the age of the oldest oak in the country.

"No. As far as one can be positive about anything I can assure you that
it is not."

"Yes. But your idea of assurances over there," said the great man, with
a contemptuous wave of his hand towards a window giving on the broad
thoroughfare, "seems to consist mainly in making the Secretary of State
look a fool. I have been told positively in this very room less than a
month ago that nothing of the sort was even possible."

The Assistant Commissioner glanced in the direction of the window calmly.

"You will allow me to remark, Sir Ethelred, that so far I have had no
opportunity to give you assurances of any kind."

The haughty droop of the eyes was focussed now upon the Assistant
Commissioner.

"True," confessed the deep, smooth voice. "I sent for Heat. You are
still rather a novice in your new berth. And how are you getting on over
there?"

"I believe I am learning something eve