The two men went eastward together, Mr. Bailey talking of a thousand improbable things on the way, and they laid the task before the very courteous manager, who assured them it would be the simplest thing in the world. And so it was, for they learnt the same evening that though the petition had been lodged by a large grocer of the name of Hewlett in Mafeking Avenue, the real mover in the affair was a workman resident in a small street off the Crescent, a casual labourer of the name of Seale. "That's all right," said Mr. Bailey when the news came to them as they sat at dinner together. "You won't find out that way. They been got at. That's a tenner wasted," he added anxiously, "but I'll pay it--I gave the advice. You go back home, and I'll let you know everything I hear within two days." And Mr. Clutterbuck went home a little, but only a little, comforted; feeling that he had indeed one ally--but what an ally! A man who talked in enigmas, a _dilettante_ with wild theories in which he himself only half believed; a man half ostracised, half tolerated, and wholly despised, but a man in the swim, anyhow: the memory of that consoled Mr. Clutterbuck. Two days afterwards Charlie Fitzgerald returned. His story was perfectly concise, too concise, alas, for that stricken household. He did not bother them with his visit to the Duke of Battersea and to Scotland--he spoke only of their own business. He had seen Peter Street yet once again. They were sorry, but it had happened from having too many names on the list; some had to wait; they admitted they had postponed Mr. Clutterbuck's name to Paardeberg Day, when there was a batch of thirty to bring out. "But now there's the Petition," said Charlie Fitzgerald a little awkwardly; "you see under the circumstances----" "I see," said Mr. Clutterbuck with a grim face. "Don't take it like that," said Charlie Fitzgerald, "they can't prove anything. It's only a bit of spite." "That's what I was saying to-day," said Mr. Clutterbuck. And the Anapootra Ruby Mines were forgotten--but Mr. Bailey had not forgotten them!