"There, run along and turn the station upside down; you've talked enough," she said, laughing, and drove him playfully out of the room. It was about half-past nine that the Consul meditatively mopped his head, as he reached the top step of the hotel porch. He was heated by his exertions, but exceedingly complacent. He had interviewed sixteen porters, five guards, the station agent, three char-women, four policemen, and the barmaid--the latter twice, once on business and once on pleasure; and he had discovered from the thirtieth individual, and after twenty-nine failures and a drink, the simple fact that those he sought had gone to Winchester. He did not think he could have faced Mrs. Scarsdale if he had failed. As it was, he returned triumphant, and, as he approached their private parlour, he mentally pictured in advance the scene which would await him: her radiant smile, her voluble expression of thanks, their joyful journey to Winchester; in short, success. He pushed open the door, and this is what really happened: an angry woman with a flushed, tear-stained face rushed across the room, shoved a newspaper at him, and cried: "You brute!" The Consul dropped into the nearest chair. He looked at the infuriated Mrs. Scarsdale, he looked at the crumpled newspaper, he heard the last echo of that opprobrious monosyllable, and he said: "Well I'm jiggered!" Then, recollecting his news, he continued: "Oh, I forgot. I've found out where they have gone; it's Winchester." "Is that all you've got to tell me?" she cried. "All, in the face of this?" And she again shoved the newspaper towards him. He looked to where her finger pointed. He was hopelessly bewildered, and wondered if her native humour had inopportunely failed her and she had gone mad. "Read!" she commanded. His wandering eye followed the direction of her finger, and he read slowly, with open mouth, a short account of the arrest and partial trial at Winchester of one Richard Allingford, who claimed to be Harold Scarsdale. "Tell me," she thundered, "is that my husband?" "Well," he said, slowly, "I guess it is," and he re-read the last sentence of the paragraph in the newspaper: "_The prisoner insisted that he was Harold Scarsdale, and could prove his identity. He was accompanied by a woman who claimed to be Mrs. Robert Allingford, wife of the well-known United States Consul at Christchurch. The prisoner was remanded till this morning._" "Have you a brother?" "Yes." "Has he ever been arrested?" "Arrested! Why, I've spent most of my time for the past twenty years in bailing him out." "But why has my husband taken his name?" she demanded. "That is a matter you'll have to settle with Scarsdale; and if you look as you do now, I'm real sorry for him," he replied. "You don't care a bit!" she cried. "Oh, yes I do; but I want you to see it from its humorous side," he answered.