"I wouldn't bother about that just at present," Esdaile called rather loudly. "Just see if there's a train about tea-time, do you mind?" Monty, once more returning, took up the Time Table again. Philip walked with us to the door. Then another little exclamation broke from him. Monty had put down the Time Table and had asked him for the cellar key. "What on earth do you want the cellar key for?" Philip demanded. "To put this jar of stuff back," Monty replied. "It won't be wanted now." Hereupon Philip broke out with a petulance that struck me as entirely disproportionate, if indeed there had been any occasion for petulance at all. "Oh, we can do that any time. We've got all the rest of the day to ourselves, haven't we? Sit down and smoke a cigarette or something; you've done about enough for one morning----" It was then that we left. PART II WHAT HAPPENED OUTSIDE I It may have already struck you that while Esdaile, a responsible householder directly interested in any unusual occurrence on his premises, had not once been into his garden to see what the trouble was, I myself, a journalist with quite a good "news story" in the wind, had shown little more eagerness. Well, I will explain that. In the first place, we have our own reporters, who do that kind of thing far better than I can. Next, however interesting things outside might have been, I had found them quite interesting enough inside. But my real reason was this:-- Rooke had said that both these aviators were civilians. Well, as regards civilian flying, we on the _Circus_ had something that for want of a better name I will call a policy. To speak quite frankly, this policy was a supine one enough, and merely consisted in waiting for a definite lead. As you know, no such thing as a definite lead existed. Except for war purposes, the future use of flying was at that time the blankest of blanks. It is true we talked a good deal about it, but that was merely our highly specialized way of saying nothing and filling space at the same time. Nobody admitted this lack more readily than those who had drawn up the provisional Regulations. These were merely experimental, any accident might change them at any moment, and, in one word, all our experience was still to be earned. For this reason, I was just as much interested in opinion about the facts as I was in the facts themselves, and already I was looking forward to an exchange of views with Hubbard and Mackwith.