There was no elation in the thought that he was freed from the encumbrance of Anna Hethbridge by a chance misprint. Neither was there hesitation in turning accident ruthlessly to his own advantage. There was only a steady pressing forward--an unceasing, unwearying attention to his own gain. In those days news travelled slowly, and the personal had not yet taken precedence in journalism. In the anxiety for the State, the Individual was apt to be overlooked. Seymour Michael counted on six months of oblivion at the least--he hoped for more, but with characteristic caution acted always in anticipation of the worst. He had scarcely thrown the newspaper aside when a comrade entered the bungalow carrying another copy of the same journal. “I say, Michael,” exclaimed this man, “do you see that you're put in among the killed?” “Yes,” replied Seymour Michael, without haste, without hesitation. “I have already written to contradict it. Not that there is any one to care whether I am dead or alive. But it might do me harm in Leadenhall Street. I can't afford to be dead even for a week when so much promotion is going forward.” This was artistic. Most of us forget to preserve our own characteristics in diverging from the truth. The tangled web is only woven when _first_ we practise to deceive. Later on the facility is greater, the handling superior, and the web runs smooth and straight. Seymour Michael was apparently no novice at this sort of thing. He was even at that moment making mental note of the fact that up-country mails were in a state of disorganisation, and a letter which was never written may easily be made to have miscarried later on. But even he could not foresee everything--no one can. Not even the righteous man, much less the liar. “Do you mean to say,” pursued the newcomer, “that you are not writing to your family about it--only to the Company?” “That is all.” “Rum chap you are, Michael,” said the other, lighting a cheroot. “Heartless beggar I take it.” “Not at all. The simple fact is that I have no one to write to. I only possess one or two distant relatives, and they would probably be rather sorry than otherwise to have the report contradicted.” The younger officer--a mere boy--with a beardless, happy face, walked to the door of the bungalow. “Of course there is always this in it,” he said carelessly. “By the time the contradiction reaches home the news may be true.” Seymour Michael laughed lamely. A joke of this description made him feel rather sick, for a Jew never makes a soldier or a sailor, and they are rarely found in those positions unless great gain is holden up.