Over all these dark thoughts and ill-concealed emotions Mr. Mergleson prevailed, large yet speedy, speedy yet exact, parroting orders and making plump gestures, performing duties and seeing that duties were performed. Matters came to a climax late on Saturday night at the end of a trying day, just before Mr. Mergleson went round to lock up and turn out the lights. Thomas came into the pantry close behind Bealby, who, greatly belated through his own inefficiency, was carrying a tray of glasses from the steward’s room, applied an ungentle hand to his neck, and ruffled up his back hair in a smart and painful manner. At the same time Thomas remarked, “Burrrrh!” Bealby stood still for a moment and then put down his tray on the table and, making peculiar sounds as he did so, resorted very rapidly to the toasting fork.... He got a prong into Thomas’s chin at the first prod. How swift are the changes of the human soul! At the moment of his thrust young Bealby was a primordial savage; so soon as he saw this incredible piercing of Thomas’s chin—for all the care that Bealby had taken it might just as well have been Thomas’s eye—he moved swiftly through the ages and became a simple Christian child. He abandoned violence and fled. The fork hung for a moment from the visage of Thomas like a twisted beard of brass, and then rattled on the ground. Thomas clapped his hand to his chin and discovered blood. “You little—!” He never found the right word (which perhaps is just as well); instead he started in pursuit of Bealby. Bealby—in his sudden horror of his own act—and Thomas fled headlong into the passage and made straight for the service stairs that went up into a higher world. He had little time to think. Thomas with a red-smeared chin appeared in pursuit. Thomas the avenger. Thomas really roused. Bealby shot through the green baize door and the pursuing footman pulled up only just in time not to follow him. Only just in time. He had an instinctive instant anxious fear of great dangers. He heard something, a sound as though the young of some very large animal had squeaked feebly. He had a glimpse of something black and white—and large.... Then something, some glass thing, smashed. He steadied the green baize door which was wobbling on its brass hinges, controlled his panting breath and listened. A low rich voice was—ejaculating. It was not Bealby’s voice, it was the voice of some substantial person being quietly but deeply angry. They were the ejaculations restrained in tone but not in quality of a ripe and well-stored mind,—no boy’s thin stuff. Then very softly Thomas pushed open the door—just widely enough to see and as instantly let it fall back into place. Very gently and yet with an alert rapidity he turned about and stole down the service stairs. His superior officer appeared in the passage below. “Mr. Mergleson,” he cried, “I say—Mr. Mergleson.” “What’s up?” said Mr. Mergleson. “He’s gone!” “Who?” “Bealby.”