straight out I don't like the looks of you. I believe you're a pal of
his."

"No longer," said Archie, firmly. "I mean to say, a chappie who makes
you stand on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement and get a crick in
the spine, and then doesn't turn up and leaves you biffing all over the
countryside in a bathing suit--"

The reintroduction of the bathing suit motive seemed to have the worst
effect on the captain. He flushed darkly.

"Are you trying to josh me? I've a mind to soak you!"

"If ye plaze, sorr," cried Officer Donahue and Officer Cassidy in
chorus. In the course of their professional career they did not often
hear their superior make many suggestions with which they saw eye to
eye, but he had certainly, in their opinion, spoken a mouthful now.

"No, honestly, my dear old thing, nothing was farther from my
thoughts--"

He would have spoken further, but at this moment the world came to
an end. At least, that was how it sounded. Somewhere in the immediate
neighbourhood something went off with a vast explosion, shattering the
glass in the window, peeling the plaster from the ceiling, and sending
him staggering into the inhospitable arms of Officer Donahue.

The three guardians of the Law stared at one another.

"If ye plaze, sorr," said. Officer Cassidy, saluting.

"Well?"

"May I spake, sorr?"

"Well?"

"Something's exploded, sorr!"

The information, kindly meant though it was, seemed to annoy the
captain.

"What the devil did you think I thought had happened?" he demanded, with
not a little irritation, "It was a bomb!"

Archie could have corrected this diagnosis, for already a faint but
appealing aroma of an alcoholic nature was creeping into the room
through a hole in the ceiling, and there had risen before his eyes the
picture of J. B. Wheeler affectionately regarding that barrel of his on
the previous morning in the studio upstairs. J. B. Wheeler had wanted
quick results, and he had got them. Archie had long since ceased to
regard J. B. Wheeler as anything but a tumour on the social system, but
he was bound to admit that he had certainly done him a good turn now.
Already these honest men, diverted by the superior attraction of this
latest happening, appeared to have forgotten his existence.

"Sorr!" said Officer Donahue.

"Well?"

"It came from upstairs, sorr."

"Of course it came from upstairs. Cassidy!"

"Sorr?"

"Get down into the street, call up the reserves, and stand at th