He took his hat and stick from the rack in the hall, and let himself out of the front door. He stood for a few seconds on the steps and looked up and down the street. A cab rolled up to the curb. After drawing on his gloves and adjusting his monocle, he stepped into the cab and quietly gave the name of his club to the man behind. The cab bowled along the quiet, respectable street. "Stop here," cried Hemming, when they had reached the corner, and as the horse slid to a standstill he stepped out, and went up to a heavily dressed young man on the pavement. The stranger did not see him, and held on in the direction from which Hemming had just come. "Excuse me--a word," said Hemming. The other halted. His heavy, handsome face whitened under its unhealthy skin. "Ah, how do, Hemming," he said. Hemming took the extended hand. They stood about the same height. Hemming retained his grip of the other's hand. "I am somewhat pressed for time," he said, "so you'll forgive me if I begin immediately." He jerked Mr. Penthouse toward him with a downward wrench of his right arm, and, with his stick in his left hand, he administered a short and severe caning. "I'm a-waitin' for you, guvnor," called the cabby. Leaving Mr. Penthouse seated upon the pavement, dazed and blasphemous, Hemming returned to the cab and drove away. CHAPTER III. HEMMING VISITS THE MANAGER OF THE SYNDICATE Hemming's club was a favourite resort of military and naval men stationed near town, or home on leave. He met half a dozen whom he knew more or less intimately. All had something to say about his change of career, but presently he escaped them, and sought a quiet corner of the reading-room, where he could smoke and stare at the latest papers. Reading was out of the question. He might as well have tried to sing. Several times he was ready to leave the club and return to Miss Travers, but the memory of the movement she had made when he had touched her shoulder kept him crushed in his chair. He dined at the club, and drank more than was his custom. The sound wine brought colour back to his cheeks. A youngster, who had been stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a year past, came over to his table with an American magazine in his hand. "Do you know, old chap, your stories are quite the rage in Halifax," he said. "I notice, though, that the fellows here do not know what you are up to at all. One soon leaves the trick of reading the magazines on the other side." This unexpected word for his literary work cheered Hemming considerably. He invited the youth to seat himself and have a cigar. Soon he found himself telling his admirer something of his aspirations. When Anderson of the Royal Engineers came in, he found Hemming and the lieutenant on leave from Canada still talking across the table. Anderson was Hemming's senior by some four or five years, but they had been friends since childhood. After their greeting, Anderson said: "Have you seen Penthouse?"