I say slowly because, when I first woke, my physical nausea was so great that I was totally unable to form a clear judgment upon the events of the previous evening. Nor was my mother, never a fluent speaker, more communicative than usual. I had been brought home, she said, by two young gentlemen, whose names she did not know, and a doctor had been called in, at my father’s request, who had made a diagnosis with which my father disagreed. Indeed my father, I gathered, had been considerably upset, and had spent a restless night in consequence, and my mother had been obliged on three separate occasions to prepare him a cup of malted milk. She then awaited my orders for breakfast. But this was a meal that I was compelled to omit. And it was only after she had left me that my memory began to recover itself and to lay its sombre offerings at the feet of my judgment. Then I rang the bell again and enquired of my mother the exact terms of the doctor’s diagnosis. But she shook her head and referred me to my father, who would be able to tell me, she said, when he returned from business. “Not that it much matters,” she added, “for you’d be sure to disagree with it.” “I certainly should,” I replied, “and I certainly shall. I was poisoned—deliberately poisoned—by the wicked woman with whom I had my supper.” “An actress, I believe,” said my mother. “Whom I was prepared to save,” I said, “from a deserved perdition.” My mother was silent for a moment. “Is that all?” she said. “How do you mean, all?” I asked. “I mean, may I go now?” “Oh, yes, yes,” I said. “Shut the door quietly, please; and I should like my shaving water in about an hour.” Then I lay back quietly, closing my eyes in pain and rehearsing such speeches as would be necessary to put both Mr. Chrysostom Lorton and Ezekiel Stool in the full possession of the facts of the case. It would also be essential, I foresaw, to call a further special meeting of the Anti-Dramatic and Saltatory Union and to make a point of addressing, at the earliest opportunity, the Society for the Prevention of the Strong Drink Traffic. It would be equally important too, in my capacity of gap-filler, to prepare an explanatory petition for use at the local prayer-meetings, the majority of which had contributed members to last night’s audience in the Porter Street Drill Hall. Yes, it was all coming back to me in its devilish ingenuity (for it had evidently been a plot on the part of Mr. Maidstone’s daughter), and she might depend upon it that if legal redress were possible, it should be extracted from her to the last farthing.