"One more question," said I--for by this time we had reached the edge of the crowd. "Do you happen to know if Professor Foe was in the building at the time?" "He was not, sir. He had locked up for the day and gone home to his private house. They fetched him by 'phone. . . . I know, sir, having received instructions to pass him in: which I did, under escort. You needn't be anxious about him, if he's a friend of yours." But I was. The crowd, as the Sergeant had promised, was curious rather than vicious; much the sort of crowd that the King's coach will fetch out, or a big fire; and from this I augured hopefully (correctly, too, as it proved) that the actual rioters had been little more than a handful, excited by Saturday's beer and park-oratory. . . . The average Londoner takes very little truck in municipal politics, as I'd been deploring for a fortnight on public platforms. It costs you all your time to get one in ten of him to attend a public meeting: he's cynical and sits with his back to the ring where a few earnest men and women, and a number of cranks, are putting it up against the Vested Interests and the Press. As we came up, some few recognised Farrell, and raised a cheer. . . . I dare say that helped: but anyhow the Sergeant worked us through with great skill, here and there addressing a man good-naturedly and advising him to go home and take his wages to the missus, because the fun was over and soon there might be pickpockets about. In thirty seconds or so we had reached the gate and were admitted. The porter's lodge had escaped lightly. A trampled flower-bed, flowerless at this season, and a few broken window-panes, were all the evidence that the rioters had passed. A little farther on where the broad carriage-way, that ran straight to the College portico, threw out branches right and left to the Natural Science Buildings, a number of ornamental shrubs had been mutilated, a few of the smaller uprooted. Foe's laboratory lay to the left, and we were about to take this bend when a tall man came striding across to us from the right; a short way ahead of two others, one round and pursy and of clerical aspect, the other an official in the Silversmiths' uniform. The tall man I guessed at once to be the Principal, returning from a survey of the damage done: and I waited while he approached. He wore an angry frown, and his eyes interrogated us pretty sharply. "Sir Elkin Travers?" I asked. "At your service, sir, if you are sent to help in this business?" Sir Elkin's eyes passed on this question to the Police Sergeant and reverted to me. "From Whitehall?" he asked. "No, sir," I answered. "My name is Otway--Sir Roderick Otway; and our only excuse for being here is that two of us are close friends of Professor Foe. Indeed, sir, for myself, let me say that I have for many years been his closest friend, and I am anxious about him."