hear it."

"Been spending the week-end with Foley, haven't you?" Preston enquired,
closing his eyes a little.

Maraton nodded. "Yes," he confessed, "I have been there."

"There are many that don't think much of Foley," Henneford remarked.
"Myself I am not sure what to make of him. I think he'd be a people's
man, right enough, if it wasn't for the Cabinet."

"I believe, in my heart," Maraton said, "that he is a people's man."

They sped on through deserted spaces, past smoke-stained factories,
across cobbled streets, past a wilderness of small houses, grimy,
everywhere repellent. Soon they entered Manchester by the back way and
pulled up presently at a small and unimposing hotel.

"We've taken a room for you here," Henneford announced. "It's close to
the hall, and it's quiet and clean enough. The big hotels I doubt
whether you'd ever be able to get out of, when once they found where you
were."

"As a matter of fact," Preston added, "there's a room taken in your name
at the Midland, to put folks off a bit. We'll have to smuggle you out
here if there's any trouble to-night. The people are rare and
restless."

"It will do very nicely, I am sure," Maraton replied.

The place was an ordinary commercial hotel, clean apparently but
otherwise wholly unattractive. Henneford led the way up-stairs and with
some pride threw open the door of a room on the first floor. "We've got
you a sitting-room," he said. "Thought you might want to talk to these
Press people, perhaps, or do a bit of work. Your secretary's somewhere
about the place--turned up with a typewriter early this morning. And
there's a young woman--"

"A what?" Maraton asked.

"A young woman," Henneford continued,--"secretary's sister or
something."

Maraton smiled.

"Miss Thurnbrein."

"What, the tailoress?" Preston replied. "She's a good sort. Wrote rare
stuff, she did, about her trade. They are out together, seeing the
sights. Didn't expect you quite so soon, I expect."

Maraton looked around the little sitting-room. It was furnished with a
carpet of bright green thrown over a foundation of linoleum, a suite of
stamped magenta plush, an overmantel, gilt cornices over the windows, a
piano, a table covered with a gaudy tablecloth. On the walls were hung
some oleographs. The lighting of the room was of gas with incandescent
mantles. There had been, apparently, judging by an odour which still
remained, a great deal of beer consumed in the apartment at one