le," said Dick
with a gentle remonstrance in his voice which Mr. Chubble was at a loss
whether to take seriously or no.

"Can you give me the key to him?" he cried.

"I can."

"Then out with it, my lad."

Mr. Chubble disposed himself to listen but with so bristling an
expression that it was clear no explanation could satisfy him. Dick,
however, took no heed of that. He spoke slowly as one lecturing to an
obtuse class of scholars.

"My father was born predestined to believe that all the people whom he
knows are invariably wrong, and all the people he doesn't know are
invariably right. And when I feel inclined to deplore his abuse of his
own country I console myself with the reflection that he would be the
staunchest friend of England that England ever had--if only he had been
born in Germany."

Mr. Chubble grunted and turned the speech suspiciously over in his mind.
Was Dick poking fun at him or at his father?

"That's bookish," he said.

"I am afraid it is," Dick Hazlewood agreed humbly. "The fact is I am now
an Instructor at the Staff College and much is expected of me."

They had reached the gate of Little Beeding House. It was summer time.
A yellow drive of gravel ran straight between long broad flower-beds
to the door.

"Won't you come in and see my father?" Dick asked innocently.
"He's at home."

"No, my lad, no." Mr. Chubble hastened to add: "I haven't the time. But I
am very glad to have met you. You are here for long?"

"No. Only just for luncheon," said Dick, and he walked along the drive
into the house. He was met in the hall by Hubbard the butler, an old
colourless man of genteel movements which seemed slow and were
astonishingly quick. He spoke in gentle purring tones and was the very
butler for Mr. Harold Hazlewood.

"Your father has been asking for you, sir," said Hubbard. "He seems a
little anxious. He is in the big room."

"Very well," said Dick, and he crossed the hall and the drawing-room,
wondering what new plan for the regeneration of the world was being
hatched in his father's sedulous brains. He had received a telegram at
Camberley the day before urgently calling upon him to arrive at Little
Beeding in time for luncheon. He went into the library as it was called,
but in reality it was the room used by everybody except upon ceremonial
occasions. It was a big room; half of it held a billiard table, the other
half had writing-tables, lounges, comfortable chairs and a table for
brid