At 1 A. M. he arose and, leaving the club, set out for his lodgings. He rambled off his route and presently he found himself in Half Moon Street. By another coincidence he was directly in front of Number 5. Groggily, he stood for a space trying to couple these facts with some foggy recollections which lurked in the back of his brain. Then he remembered. He made his fumbling way up the steps to the door and rang the bell and rang it again and again. At length footsteps sounded in the passage within and the door was opened by an individual who, despite his state of partial undress, plainly was a butler. “Well, sir?” he asked. “I desire (hic) to shee your master,” said the inebriate. “Mush shee him at once.” “But the hour is very late, sir,” remonstrated the servant. “The master has retired. He is in bed asleep. Can’t I take the message, sir, and deliver it in the morning?” “Not at all,” said the clubman. “Thish is mosh pressing and imperative. Businish is strictly between your master (hic) and myself.” So the butler went away, leaving him there, and eventually there appeared in the doorway, a middle-aged gentleman of an irritable aspect, in dressing-gown and slippers who plainly had just been aroused from slumber. “Well, sir, well, sir,” he snapped, “what is it you wish to say to me?” “Are you the gen’l’m who inserted (hic) advertishment in _Times_ stating you wished engage servishes of a young man ’company you to Africa?” “I am. What of it?” “Well, (hic) I jus’ happened to be passing and I dropped in to tell you that, pershonally, I can’t shee my way clear to going.” § 250 Everything Coming Out Just Right This is one of those post-war stories. However, it is said to have the advantage on its side of being true. It seems there was an English nobleman whose estate shrunk frightfully between 1914 and 1918. He decided, in order to replenish the family fortune, to go into business. But neither nature nor experience had qualified him for a commercial career and he made a frightful hash of the venture. Eventually, a receiver took over his affairs. The receiver engaged an expert accountant who went over the books and struck a trial balance. His Lordship scanned the document and exclaimed: “What a remarkable coincidence! What an extraordinary coincidence! Why, the totals on both sides are identical!” § 251 Delivered Through a Middleman In the year after the Great War started there was a German who ran a saloon in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Close by was a munition factory where explosives were being manufactured for the Allies. As one who had a sympathy for the cause of his Father-land, the German nursed a deep grudge against the neighboring industry. He included the operatives in the plant among his enemies. One day, as he sat behind his bar, a husky Irishman in overalls entered.