sm came into the room and began to act. James was the
name of this individual. Dumb and serious and active as an insect, this
man always filled Jones' mind with wonderment; he seemed less a man than
a machine. But at least he was a perfect machine.

Fully dressed now, he was preparing to go down when a knock came to the
door and Mr. Church came in with a big envelope on a salver.

"This is what you requested me to fetch from Jermyn Street, my Lord."

"Oh, you've been to Jermyn Street?"

"Yes, my Lord, directly I had served your tea at quarter to eight, I
took a taxi."

"Good!" said Jones.

He took the envelope, and, Church and the Mechanism having withdrawn, he
sat down by the window to have a look at the contents.

The envelope contained letters.

Letters from a man to a woman. Letters from the Earl of Rochester to
Sapphira Plinlimon. The most odiously and awfully stupid collection of
love letters ever written by a fool to be read by a wigged counsel in a
divorce court.

They covered three months, and had been written two years ago.

They were passionate, idealistic in parts, drivelling. He called her his
"Ickle teeny weeny treasure." Baby language--Jones almost blushed as he
read.

"He sure was moulting," said he, as he dropped letter after letter on
the floor. "And he paid eight thousand to hold these things back--well,
I don't know, maybe I'd have done the same myself. I can't fancy seeing
myself in the _Philadelphia Ledger_ with this stuff tacked on to the end
of my name."

He collected the incriminating documents, placed them in the envelope,
and came downstairs with it in his hand.

Breakfast was an almost exact replica of the meal of yesterday; the pile
of letters brought in by Church was rather smaller, however.

These letters were a new difficulty, they would all have to be answered,
the ones of yesterday, and the ones of to-day.

He would have to secure the services of a typist and a typewriter: that
could be arranged later on. He placed them aside and opened a newspaper.
He was accustomed enough now to his situation to be able to take an
interest in the news of the day. At any moment his environment might
split to admit of a new Voles or Spicer, or perhaps some more dangerous
spectre engendered from the dubious past of Rochester; but he scarcely
thought of this, he had gone beyond fear, he was up to the neck in the
business.

He glanced at the news of the day, reading as he ate. Then he p