driving you a part
of the way, Sir Roderick?"

"Thank you, Mr. Farrell," said I. "But you're for Wimbledon, I
believe, and I'm for Chelsea. Fact is"--I ventured it on an
impulse--"I'm going to call on that friend of mine, Professor Foe,
who so unhappily interrupted you to-night, and tell him that he made
a fool of himself." I watched his eyes. They were merely dull--
heavy. "You did provoke him, you know, Mr. Farrell," I went on:
"I'm morally certain he is guiltless of the practices alleged in that
document of yours; and, if I can persuade him to receive you in his
laboratory and show you his work and his methods--"

By George, I _had_ called back that look into Mr. Farrell's
gooseberry eyes! This time it lasted for about two seconds.

"Meet him?--_him?_ Your pardon, Sir Roderick." He brushed his hand
over his eyes, but they were dull again. . . . "No, thank you"--he
turned to the Chairman--"It's only two steps to the car; I don't want
anyone's arm. . . . Well, yes, I'm obliged to you. Queer, how tired
I feel. . . . Good night, gentlemen!"

The car purred and glided away. "I feel a bit uneasy about our
Candidate," said the Chairman as we watched the rear-light turn the
corner. "He's had a shock. . . . Well, we live in stirring times,
and one more evening's over!"

"But it isn't!" I cried out on a sudden thought. "Man, we've
forgotten the reporters! If they've left the building the whole town
will be red before we're well out of our beauty-sleep."

We made a plunge back for the hall and, as luck would have it, found
three of the four reporters at the table. The early close had left
them ahead of time, and two were copying out their shorthand while
the third was engaged on a pithy paragraph or two under the headline
of "Stormy Proceedings--A Professor Ejected. What happens to Dogs in
the Silversmiths' College?"

I won't say how we prevailed with the Fourth Estate, except that it
wasn't by bribery. The man writing the Pithy Pars did some cricket
reporting at Lord's during the summer--some of the best, too.
I was taking bread out of his mouth, and knew it. But it had to be
done, and it was done, as a favour between gentlemen. He saw to the
others. . . . God help those people who run down Cricket!

I knocked in at Foe's flat well on the virtuous side of midnight.
Jimmy was in charge of the patient. Foe had got into an old Caius
blazer and sat very far back in a wicker chair--lolled, in fact,