"And this woman also?" The allusion was to Lady Dykes. Mr. McTavish was shocked. "Dear me, no; that is Lady Dykes, of Fennington Park, one of our most esteemed clients, who has already been subjected to the most terrible annoyance. The man"--pointing to Mr. Luker--"you will turn out with the woman." The constable touched Mr. Luker on the arm. "Now, sir, offer the lady a good example, and show her the way out." Mr. Luker put his hat on, and, without a word, prepared to act on the officer's advice. Mrs. Lamb caught him by the shoulder. "You cur! Don't be a fool, Luker, and do as he tells you." The constable smiled, good-humouredly. "If you're a wise man, sir, you will do as I tell you, and you'll talk the matter over with the lady afterwards." Mr. Luker seemed to incline to the opinion that the policeman's was the voice of wisdom. Withdrawing himself from the lady's detaining fingers, still without a word, he left the room. The constable addressed himself to Mrs. Lamb. "Now, madam, we policemen hate to have to be rude to a lady; might I ask you to oblige me by following your friend's very excellent example? That's the way out." He jerked his thumb towards the open door. Mrs. Lamb looked at him and at the others. Apparently what she saw forced her to the conclusion that what she called "the game" was "up". She brought Mr. McTavish's malacca cane on to a writing-table with a resounding thwack. "You couple of thieves! I'll wring your necks for you yet before I've done!" She dashed the stick upon the floor and went, the clerks treading on each others' toes in their anxiety to give her as much room as she required. CHAPTER XXVI SOLICITOR AND CLIENT A pseudo-historical utterance was paraphrased by Mr. Luker when the lady joined him in the street without. "It may have been magnificent, but it wasn't war." It is possible that Mrs. Lamb knew very little about the charge at Balaclava. It is certain that she had never heard of the phrase with which the critical French general has been credited. And she was in a red-hot temper, so that in any case she was in no mood to appreciate her legal adviser's recondite allusions. The lady's own remark was idiomatic in the extreme. "Luker, I'd like to knock your head clean off your shoulders. If it hadn't been for you I'd have got all the ready I wanted out of that couple of cripples, or----" "Or you'd have been on your road to the lock-up. There's no 'or' about it; if it hadn't been for me you would have been. My dear Isabel----" "Don't call me----" "All right; I won't. If I were to call you all that I think you ought to be called, you mightn't like it. I was merely about to remark that your methods are too primitive. In London you can't go into an office and get all the money you want out of a couple of lawyers, old or young, with the aid of a stick. It can't be done. If it could be done people would be doing it all day long."