r. What's your man's name?"

"Hawkesby," said Doyle. "Sir Gilbert Hawkesby, no less."

Meldon started from his chair.

"Are you sure of that?" he asked, "absolutely dead certain? This is a
business over which it won't do to make mistakes."

"It's what was in his letter, any way," said Doyle, "when he wrote
engaging rooms in the hotel."

"When does he arrive?"

"To-morrow," said Doyle; "to-morrow afternoon, and I told Sabina to
kill a chicken to-day, for it's likely he'll be wanting a bit of dinner
after the drive over from Donard. I thought if he had a chicken and a
bit of boiled bacon, with a custard pudding after that--"

"Go into the coach-house at once," said Meldon, "and take any cushions
you want. I can't talk any more to you this morning. I'm going to be
frightfully busy."

Doyle, grinning broadly, led his horse round to the yard. He did not
believe that Meldon was ever busy. Like most people he failed to
appreciate the real greatness of the clergyman.

Meldon hurried into the house and flung open the door of the study.
Major Kent looked up from his papers with a weary smile.

"Couldn't you and Doyle settle that business of the car cushions
between you? I shall never get these accounts done if I'm interrupted
every minute."

"We could have settled it," said Meldon. "In fact we have settled it,
but a question of vastly greater importance has arisen. We are
threatened with something like an actual catastrophe."

"If it's the kind of catastrophe which involves an hour or so of solid
talk, J. J., don't you think you could manage to put it off for a
little? I shall be quite ready to go into it at any length you like
this evening after dinner."

"Major," said Meldon, "if an earthquake came--the kind of earthquake
which knocks down houses--and if thunderbolts were falling red-hot out
of the sky, and if a large tidal wave was rushing up across the lawn,
and if a moving bog was desolating your kitchen garden and engulfing
your polo ponies, would you or would you not sit calmly there and go on
with your accounts?"

"If all those things were happening I'd move, of course."

"There's no 'of course' about it. Some men wouldn't."

"Nonsense, J. J. The tidal wave alone--"

"Some men," repeated Meldon, "would sit on and finish their accounts.
There was a soldier at Pompeii, for instance--they found his body
centuries afterwards--who wouldn't stir from his post even when he saw
the molten lava