He shut the door with a slam, reopened it and examined the lock. All seemed in trim. He tugged at his left whisker--sign of wine-cellar perplexity. "The world nowadays is getting that rummy," he soliloquized. "I dunno! Those bloomin’ fairies, I suppose." So it was. Many a true word is spoken in bewilderment. The elves--delighted to hear this tribute, however involuntary, to their effectiveness--joined hands, raced and sang in a ring about him. They were mad with happiness, jollier far than legendary grigs and sandboys. The butler stood in the centre of the marble hall in a maze of indecision, yet at the same time strangely pleased, till their romp was ended. Then with a shriek of joy, which his clay ears were incapable of hearing, the fairies clambered about him. From his waist upwards they clung to him; made him their vehicle. June sat enthroned on his baldness. He was an honoured man. As he went upstairs, Sparks, the Duchess’s maid, happened to pass down them. She saw his smiling face, and crowsfeet of kindliness, not often visible, about his eyes. "La! Mr. Gootle, what’s this?" she asked. "Company for her Grace, Sparks," he answered, pompously. The lady’s-maid stared, then ran on giggling. "Gootle’s got ’em!" she murmured, not untruthfully. She saw possibility for sniggering gossip when she reached the housekeeper’s room. The Duchess was in the library going through her visitors’ list, deciding on the guests to be invited to her next dinner-party, writing the names of the selected on a large half-sheet. The butler entered the library. At once the fairies descended from him and clustered about the Duchess and the writing-table. Gootle was suddenly aware of the fact that his entrance was purposeless. The object that had taken him there had departed. He struggled with his brains to think of a reasonable excuse for the intrusion. "Yes, Gootle?" the Duchess inquired. "Ahem, your Grace, the--front-door flew open." The Duchess laid down her pen and--looked. "Really, Gootle! Should I have been troubled with that?" Her glance was ominous. "Very sorry, your Grace, very sorry," he mumbled, fluttering his hands like flappers, and withdrew. He felt slapped. He wanted to kick himself. "Mass! hass! hass!" he soliloquized. "What did I do that for?" He paused on the stairs. "Them bloomin’ fairies!" he said again. June and her companions were ripe for their form of usefulness. They did nothing for the time, but sat silently, perched picturesquely on the table, mantelpiece, chandeliers and bookcases, while the Duchess continued the selection and completed her list. She drew a line to indicate that it was ended. June touched the pen. The Duchess scrawled through the line, in effect deleting it, and wrote an additional name. "Mrs. Barnett Q. Moss." Then she drew a second line.