He rose frequently in the small hours to swallow one of the Hornsby lozenges or, when these palled upon him, one of the Glarges. At times he gargled, and at others, filling his chest to the fullest extent and retaining his breath to the utmost of his capacity, he murmured the syllables which he had been assured would strengthen the vocal chords. He could not, in a stranger's house and at such an hour, permit himself the loud roar which the Voice Producer had insisted upon: it would have been discourteous and, what was worse, it might have impaired his now assured reputation for consistency and sober judgment. It was doubtless, however, owing to this unfortunate but necessary omission that he owed, next day, his complete inability to speak above a whisper. He rose tired out at seven, dressed wearily, and came down upon that fatal day, November 19, 1911. He saw with increased depression that it was raining. He was, I am sorry to say, so distressed during the heartfelt and simple family prayers of the household as to overset the chair at which he knelt; and at breakfast his nervousness was so intense as to be positively painful to his kind host and hostess, who pressed upon him with assiduous hospitality, kidneys, eggs, bacon, haddock seethed in milk, sausages, cold pheasant, Virginia peach-fed ham, and kedgeree. He was indifferent to all these things. During the few moments after breakfast which our great English merchants devote to glancing at the daily Press, he could not bring himself to look at the papers which lay upon the table. He so dreaded the insults of the one, he dreaded so much more in another the condensed reports of what he might have said, that he found himself longing, in a sort of dazed way, for some news sheet in which the world might be presented to him empty of his own famous name. As it was, I repeat, he dared not open one of them. Luckily for him his cheery host did not leave him long in this misery. He found him standing listless in the hall, slapped him on the back and said in a loud and hearty voice: "You've got to come with me! The motor's ready and the Missus'll be coming down at once." Then he whispered as the suggestion required: "Brandy? All's Mum!" Mr. Clutterbuck refused it, and in a few moments his host had returned with a decanter of the inspiring beverage. Mr. Clutterbuck gulped a great mouthful fearfully, choked, and suffered, but he was grateful, and the more grateful for the rapidity with which Mr. Stephens suddenly rapt the dangerous friend away.