As he did so, he noticed an envelope addressed to him
lying on the table. Picking it up he tore off the end, extracted and
read the note. Just as he had finished there came a tap at the door.

"Come," he called out.

The door opened and Dorothy West entered, looking very pretty and
business-like with a note-book and pencil in her hand.

"Good morning," she said.

"Mornin', Miss West," he replied, gazing at her apparently without
seeing her. He was obviously thinking of something else.

She seated herself beside his table and looked up, awaiting his signal
to begin the day's work.

"There are some things in this country that get my goat," he remarked.

John Dene threw down the letter he was reading, twirled the cigar
between his lips and snorted his impatience, as he jumped from his
chair and proceeded to stride up and down the room.

"There are quite a lot that get mine," she remarked demurely, as she
glanced up from her note-book.

"A lot that get yours," he repeated, coming to a standstill and looking
down at her.

"Things that get my goat." There was the slightest possible pause
between the "my" and the "goat."

Then John Dene smiled. In Toronto it was said that when John Dene
smiled securities could always be trusted to mount at least a point.

"Well, listen to this." He picked up the letter again and read:

"DEAR MR. DENE,--

"Sir Lyster desires me to write and express it as his most urgent wish
that you will pay special regard to your personal safety. He fears
that you may be inclined to treat the matter too lightly, hence this
letter.

"Yours truly,
"REGINALD BLAIR."

"If that chap hadn't such a dandy set of grandmothers and first
cousins, he'd be picking up cigarette-stubs instead of wasting his time
telling me what I knew a year ago."

"But he's only carrying out Sir Lyster's instructions," suggested
Dorothy.

"There's something in that," he admitted grudgingly, "but if they're
going to be always running around warning me of danger I know all
about----" He broke off. "Why," he continued a moment later, "I was
shot at on the steamer, nearly hustled into the docks at Liverpool, set
on by toughs in Manchester and followed around as if I was a bell-mule.
I tell you it gets my goat. This country wants gingering-up." John
Dene continued his pacing of the room.

"Couldn't you wear a red beard and blue glasses and----"

"What's that?" John Dene span round and fixed his eyes