“’Is lordship, Lord Chickney, my lord, is very persistent, my lord. ’E’s rung up twice. ’E says now that ’e makes a personal matter of it. Come what may, ’e says, ’e wishes to speak for two minutes to your lordship. Over the telephone, my lord, ’e vouchsafes no further information.” Lord Moggeridge meditated over the end of his third after lunch cigar. His man watched the end of his left eyebrow as an engineer might watch a steam gauge. There were no signs of an explosion. “He must come, Candler,” his lordship said at last.... “Oh, Candler!” “My lord?” “Put the bags and things in a conspicuous position in the hall, Candler. Change yourself, and see that you look thoroughly like trains. And in fact have everything ready, _prominently_ ready, Candler.” Then once more Lord Moggeridge concentrated his mind. § 6 To him there presently entered Lord Chickney. Lord Chickney had been twice round the world and he had seen many strange and dusky peoples and many remarkable customs and peculiar prejudices, which he had never failed to despise, but he had never completely shaken off the county family ideas in which he had been brought up. He believed that there was an incurable difference in spirit between quite good people like himself and men from down below like Moggeridge, who was the son of an Exeter chorister. He believed that these men from nowhere always cherished the profoundest respect for the real thing like himself, that they were greedy for association and gratified by notice, and so for the life of him he could not approach Lord Moggeridge without a faint sense of condescension. He saluted him as “my _dear_ Lord Moggeridge,” wrung his hand with effusion, and asked him kind, almost district-visiting, questions about his younger brother and the aspect of his house. “And you are just off, I see, for a week-end.” These amenities the Lord Chancellor acknowledged by faint gruntings and an almost imperceptible movement of his eyebrows. “There was a matter,” he said, “some _little_ matter, on which you want to consult me?” “Well,” said Lord Chickney, and rubbed his chin. “_Yes._ Yes, there _was_ a little matter, a little trouble—” “Of an urgent nature.” “Yes. Yes. Exactly. Just a little complicated, you know, not quite simple.” The dear old soldier’s manner became almost seductive. “One of these difficult little affairs, where one has to remember that one is a man of the world, you know. A little complication about a lady, known to you both. But one must make concessions, one must understand. The boy has a witness. Things are not as you supposed them to be.” Lord Moggeridge had a clean conscience about ladies; he drew out his watch and looked at it—aggressively. He kept it in his hand during his subsequent remarks. “I must confess,” he declared, “I have not the remotest idea.... If you will be so good as to be—elementary. What _is_ it all about?”