. . Good Lord! if I'd only acted on that
one little impulse, which seemed at the time not to matter two
straws!--

I took a taxi to Chelsea, carting the newspapers with me and rooting
Farrell's truffles out of a dozen or so on the way. It was just as
bad as I feared. The man had used a type-copier and snowed his
screed all over Fleet Street. There were one or two small leaders,
too, and editorial notes: nasty ones.

I caught Foe on his very doorstep. "Hallo!" said he. "What's wrong?
. . . Looks as if you were suddenly reduced to selling newspapers.
I'm not buying any, my good man."

"You'll come upstairs and read a few, anyway," said I; and took him
upstairs and showed him the _Times_. He frowned as he read Farrell's
letter. I expected him to break out into strong language at least.
But he finished his reading and tossed the paper on to the table with
no more than a short laugh--a rather grim short laugh.

"Silly little bounder," was his comment.

"You didn't treat him quite so apathetically, the night before last,"
said I. "It might be better for you if you had. Look, here's the
_Morning Post, Standard, Daily News, Mail, Chronicle, Express_. . . .
He has plastered it into them all."

"I don't read newspapers," was his answer.

"Other people do," was mine; for I was nettled a bit. "Here are some
of the editors asking questions already, and I'll bet the evening
papers will be like dogs about a bone. This man may be a damned
fool, but he's dangerous: that's to say he has started mischief."

"Oh, surely--not dangerous?" Foe queried, with an odd lift of his
eyebrows.

"If I were you, at all events, I'd go straight and consult your man--
what's his name? Travers?--at once. My taxi is waiting, and I'll
run across in time to interview him before you start your morning's
work. Did he show you his answer to these precious Memorialists
before he posted it?"

For the moment Foe ignored my question. "Dangerous?" he repeated in
a musing, questioning way. "Do you really think . . . I beg your
pardon, Roddy . . . Eh? You were asking about Travers. Yes, he
showed me his answer. Very good answer, I thought. It just told
them to mind their own business."

"Did he say that, in so many words?" I asked.

"Let me think. . . . So far as I remember he put it rather neatly.
. . . Yes, he wrote that he was not prepared to worry his staff with
vague charges, or to invite an inquiry on the strength of
repres