ry day."

"Of course, of course. I hope you will get on."

"Thank you, Sir Ethelred. I've learned something to-day, and even within
the last hour or so. There is much in this affair of a kind that does
not meet the eye in a usual anarchist outrage, even if one looked into it
as deep as can be. That's why I am here."

The great man put his arms akimbo, the backs of his big hands resting on
his hips.

"Very well. Go on. Only no details, pray. Spare me the details."

"You shall not be troubled with them, Sir Ethelred," the Assistant
Commissioner began, with a calm and untroubled assurance. While he was
speaking the hands on the face of the clock behind the great man's
back--a heavy, glistening affair of massive scrolls in the same dark
marble as the mantelpiece, and with a ghostly, evanescent tick--had moved
through the space of seven minutes. He spoke with a studious fidelity to
a parenthetical manner, into which every little fact--that is, every
detail--fitted with delightful ease. Not a murmur nor even a movement
hinted at interruption. The great Personage might have been the statue
of one of his own princely ancestors stripped of a crusader's war
harness, and put into an ill-fitting frock coat. The Assistant
Commissioner felt as though he were at liberty to talk for an hour. But
he kept his head, and at the end of the time mentioned above he broke off
with a sudden conclusion, which, reproducing the opening statement,
pleasantly surprised Sir Ethelred by its apparent swiftness and force.

"The kind of thing which meets us under the surface of this affair,
otherwise without gravity, is unusual--in this precise form at least--and
requires special treatment."

The tone of Sir Ethelred was deepened, full of conviction.

"I should think so--involving the Ambassador of a foreign power!"

"Oh! The Ambassador!" protested the other, erect and slender, allowing
himself a mere half smile. "It would be stupid of me to advance anything
of the kind. And it is absolutely unnecessary, because if I am right in
my surmises, whether ambassador or hall porter it's a mere detail."

Sir Ethelred opened a wide mouth, like a cavern, into which the hooked
nose seemed anxious to peer; there came from it a subdued rolling sound,
as from a distant organ with the scornful indignation stop.

"No! These people are too impossible. What do they mean by importing
their methods of Crim-Tartary here? A Turk would have more d