t. We went down and waited in the
hall while he whistled again.

"Where is this show of yours being held?" Foe asked, after a bit.

"In the Baths," I told him, "just across the bridge. Yes, actually
_in_ the great Swimming Bath. . . . You needn't be afraid, though.
They drain it."

"I don't care if they omitted that precaution," said he. "This is an
adventure, and I'm for taking it in the proper spirit. Let's walk."

He pushed back the catch of the lock. The door burst open, hurling
him back against the wall, as his man came flying through, fairly
projected into our arms by the pressure of wind in the porch.

"Make up the fire, put out the whisky, and go to bed," Foe bawled at
him. "Eh? . . . Yes, that's all right; I have my latch-key."

I couldn't have expostulated if I'd wanted to. The wind filled my
mouth. We butted out after him into the gale, Jimmy turning in the
doorway to let out a skirling war-whoop--"just to brace up the
flat-dwellers," he explained afterwards. "I wanted to tell 'em that
St. George was for Merry England, but there wasn't time."

We didn't say much on the way. The wind took care of that. On the
bridge we had to claw the parapet to pull ourselves along; and just
as we won to the portico of the Baths there came a squall that
knocked us all sideways. Foe and Jimmy cast their arms about one
pillar, I clung to another; and the policeman, who at that moment
shot his lantern upon us from his shelter in the doorway, pardonably
mistook our condition. He advised us--as a friend, if he might say
so--to go home quietly.

"But there's a public meeting inside," said I.

"There might be, or there might not be," he allowed. "It's a thin
one anyway. You'll get no fun out of it."

"And I am due to make a speech there," I went on. "That's to say,
they want me to propose or second a vote of thanks or something of
the sort."

"If I was you, sir," advised the constable, kindness itself, "I
wouldn't, however much they wanted it."

I gave him my card. He held it close under the ray of his bull's-eye
and altered his manner with a jerk. "Begging your pardon, Sir
Roderick--"

"Not at all," I assured him. "Most natural mistake in the world.
If there's a side entrance, now, near the platform--"

He led us up a gusty by-street and tapped for us on the side door.
It was opened at once, though cautiously, by a little frock-coated
man ornamented with a large blue-and-white favour. After an