"I'm telling you. There's a gentleman below--a gentleman who's called," said Sergeant-Major Flannery, making his meaning clear. "A gentleman," being still more precise, "who's called at the front door in a nortermobile. He wants to see you." "Well, he can't." "Says his name's Molloy." "Molloy?" "That's what he _said_," replied Mr. Flannery, as one declining to be quoted or to accept any responsibility. "Oh? All right. Send him up." "Taraxacum and hops," repeated the Sergeant-Major, pausing at the door. He disappeared, and a few moments later returned, ushering in Soapy. He left the two old friends together, and Soapy approached the bed with rather an awe-struck air. "You've got a cold," he said. Chimp sniffed--twice. Once with annoyance and once at the jug. "So would you have a code if you'd been sitting up to your neck in water for half an hour last night and had to ride home tweddy biles wriggig wet on a motorcycle." "Says which?" exclaimed Soapy, astounded. Chimp related the saga of the previous night, touching disparagingly on Hugo and saying some things about Emily which it was well she could not hear. "And that leds me out," he concluded. "No, no!" "I'm through." "Don't say that." "I do say thad." "But, Chimpie, we've got it all fixed for you to get away with the stuff to-night." Chimp stared at him incredulously. "To-night? You thig I'm going out to-night with this code of mine, to clibe through windows and be run off my legs by ..." "But, Chimpie, there's no danger of that now. We've got everything set. That guy Hugo and his friend are going to London this morning, and so's the other fellow. You won't have a thing to do but walk in." "Oh?" said Chimp. He relapsed into silence, and took a thoughtful sniff at the jug. This information, he was bound to admit, did alter the complexion of affairs. But he was a business man. "Well, if I do agree to go out and risk exposing this nasty, feverish code of mine to the night air, which is the worst thig a man can do--ask any doctor...." "Chimpie!" cried Mr. Molloy in a stricken voice. His keen intuition told him what was coming. "... I don't do it on any sigsdy-forty basis. Sigsdy-five--thirty-five is the figure." Mr. Molloy had always been an eloquent man--without a natural turn for eloquence you cannot hope to traffic successfully in the baser varieties of oil stocks; but never had he touched the sublime heights of oratory to which he soared now. Even the first few words would have been enough to melt most people. Nevertheless when at the end of five minutes he paused for breath, he knew that he had failed to grip his audience. "Sigsdy-five--thirty-five," said Chimp firmly. "You need me, or you wouldn't have brought me into this. If you could have worked the job by yourself, you'd never have tode me a word about it." "I can't work it by myself. I've got to have an alibi. I and the wife are going to a theatre to-night in Birmingham."