It was after she had made some tea and was taking it, at her desk, without milk, but with a bun and a half left over from the previous afternoon’s orgy of the small room clerks, that Lilian had the idea of a mighty and scarcely conceivable transgression, crime, depredation. None of the machines in the small room was in quite first-rate order. The machines were good, but they needed adjustment. Miss G.--the clerks referred to her as Miss G., instead of Miss Grig, when they were critical of her, which was often--was almost certainly a just woman, but she was mean, especially in the matter of wages; and she would always postpone rather too long the summoning of a mechanic to overhaul the typewriters. Such delay was, of course, disadvantageous to the office, but Miss G. was like that. Lilian, munching, inserted two sheets and a new carbon into her machine, and then pulled them out again with a swift swish. Why should she not abstract Miss G.’s own machine for the high purpose of typing Lord Mackworth’s brilliant article? It was nearly a new one. Miss G. was a first-rate typist. She typed all her own letters, and regularly at night even did copying; and she always had the star machine of the office. The one objection to Lilian’s nefarious scheme was the fact that Miss G.’s machine ranked as the Ark of the Covenant, and the rule forbidding the profane to lay hands on it was absolute and awful. This rule was a necessity in the office, where every machine amounted to an individuality, and was loved or hated and shamelessly intrigued for or against. Lilian knew a little of Miss G.’s machine, for on Its purchase she had had the honour of trying it and reinforcing Miss G.’s favourable judgment upon it, her touch being lighter than Gertie Jackson’s, that amiable, tedious hack, and similar to Miss G.’s touch. Lilian feared lest her own machine might give a slip towards the end of a page, throw a line out of the straight and spoil the whole page. Miss G.’s machine was on the small desk beneath the window in the principals’ room. Having reflected, she decided to sin. If Mr. Grig was awake she would tell him squarely that her own machine was out of gear, that all the clerks’ machines were out of gear, and if he still objected--and he might, for he ever feared Miss G.--she would bewitch him. She would put his own theory of her powers into practice upon himself.