now
perhaps what a dog-fish is like."

"Yes; I do. We're buried in special books up to our necks--whole shelves
full of them--with plates. . . . It's a noxious, rascally-looking,
altogether detestable beast, with a sort of smooth face and moustaches."

"Described to a T," commended the Assistant Commissioner. "Only mine is
clean-shaven altogether. You've seen him. It's a witty fish."

"I have seen him!" said Toodles incredulously. "I can't conceive where I
could have seen him."

"At the Explorers, I should say," dropped the Assistant Commissioner
calmly. At the name of that extremely exclusive club Toodles looked
scared, and stopped short.

"Nonsense," he protested, but in an awe-struck tone. "What do you mean?
A member?"

"Honorary," muttered the Assistant Commissioner through his teeth.

"Heavens!"

Toodles looked so thunderstruck that the Assistant Commissioner smiled
faintly.

"That's between ourselves strictly," he said.

"That's the beastliest thing I've ever heard in my life," declared
Toodles feebly, as if astonishment had robbed him of all his buoyant
strength in a second.

The Assistant Commissioner gave him an unsmiling glance. Till they came
to the door of the great man's room, Toodles preserved a scandalised and
solemn silence, as though he were offended with the Assistant
Commissioner for exposing such an unsavoury and disturbing fact. It
revolutionised his idea of the Explorers' Club's extreme selectness, of
its social purity. Toodles was revolutionary only in politics; his
social beliefs and personal feelings he wished to preserve unchanged
through all the years allotted to him on this earth which, upon the
whole, he believed to be a nice place to live on.

He stood aside.

"Go in without knocking," he said.

Shades of green silk fitted low over all the lights imparted to the room
something of a forest's deep gloom. The haughty eyes were physically the
great man's weak point. This point was wrapped up in secrecy. When an
opportunity offered, he rested them conscientiously.

The Assistant Commissioner entering saw at first only a big pale hand
supporting a big head, and concealing the upper part of a big pale face.
An open despatch-box stood on the writing-table near a few oblong sheets
of paper and a scattered handful of quill pens. There was absolutely
nothing else on the large flat surface except a little bronze statuette
draped in a toga, mysteriously watchful in its