y," Foe answered--very tolerantly, I'll admit--"you'll get
elected, to a dead certainty."

"Oh, I'm all right," said I, cooling down. "Wish I could be so sure
of your man Farrell, across the bridge."

"Farrell?"

"That's his name. . . . Think you'll be able to remember it?"

Here Jimmy dropped the ash of his cigar into his coffee-cup and
chipped in judiciously.

"Otty has the right of it, Professor--though we shall have to cure
him of his platform style. _Somebody_ has to look after this country
and look after London; and if you despise the fellows who run the
show, then it's up to you, my intellectuals, to come in and do the
business better. But you won't. It bores you. 'Oh, go away--can't
you see I'm busy? I've got a malignant growth here, potted in a
glass bottle with a diet of sterilised fat and an occasional whisky
and soda, and we're sitting around until the joker develops D.T.
He's an empyema, from South America, fully-grown male--'"

"Heavens alive!"

"I dare say I haven't the exact name," confessed Jimmy. "Fact is, I
happened on it in the dictionary when I was turning up 'Empiricist'
in a bit of a hurry. Some Moderate fellow down at Bethnal Green had
called Otty in one of his speeches 'an ignorant empiricist'; so
naturally I had to look up the word. I'd a hope it meant something
connected with Empire-building, and then Otty could have scored off
him. But apparently it doesn't."

"Are you sure?" asks Foe.

"Well, I used the dictionary they keep at Boodle's, not having one of
my own. If you tell me it's not up to date, I'll write something
sarcastic in the Complaint-Book."

Foe dropped the end of his cigar into the ash-tray and pushed back
his chair. "Well", said he, "it's about time we got into our coats,
eh?"

"My dear fellow--" I began. "You don't tell us--" I began again.

He understood, of course. What he said was, "The late Mr. Gladstone,
they tell me, used to address Queen Victoria as if she were a public
meeting. She complained that she didn't like it . . . and anyway, if
you two can't help it, I can't help the acoustic defects of this
flat. . . . Some more brandy? You'd better. It's a beast of a
night; but your faithful dog shall bear you company."

NIGHT THE SECOND.

THE MEETING AT THE BATHS.

Foe's man, after whistling ten minutes or so for a taxi, returned
upstairs, powdered with sleet. There wasn't, he said, so much as a
four-wheeler crawling in the stree