“Why,” he answered me, “you don’t suppose Pop could afford more than one hour, do you? Why, the Pope couldn’t afford more than six hours, even after they voted him a subsidy from Africa, and Pop was rich enough, Lord knows! Richer’n I am, coz of the gurls.... I told you I was Baron Hogg,” he went on, without affectation. “Yes” said I, “you did.” “Well, now, to go back to St. Thomas,” he began---- “Why on earth----?” said I. He interrupted me. “Now that _is_ interesting,” he said. “You know about St. Thomas, and you can tell me about the people who know about him, but it _does_ show that he had gone out in the Twentieth Century, for you to talk like that! Why, I got full marks in St. Thomas. Only thing I did get full marks in,” he said gloomily, looking out of the window. “That’s what _counts_,” he added: “none of yer high-falutin’ dodgy fellows. When the Colonel said, ‘Who’s got the most stuff in him?’ (not because of the rocks nor because I’m Baron Hogg), they all said, ‘_That’s_ him.’ And that was because I got first in St. Thomas.” To say that I simply could not make head or tail of this would be to say too little: and my muddlement got worse when he added, “That’s why the Colonel made me Alderman, and now I go to Paris by right.” Just at that moment the taxi-man put in his head at the window and said, with an aggrieved look: “Why didn’t you tell me where I was going?” I looked out, and saw that I was in a desolate place near the River Lea, among marshes and chimneys and the poor. There was a rotten-looking shed close by, and a policeman, uncommonly suspicious. My friend got quite excited. He pointed to the policeman and said: “Oh, how like the pictures! Is it true that they are the Secret Power in England? Now _do_----” The taxi-man got quite angry, and pointed out to me that his cab was not a caravan. He further informed me that it had been my business to tell him the way to the “Angel.” His asset was that if he dropped me there I would be in a bad way; mine was that if I paid him off there he would be in a worse one. We bargained and quarrelled, and as we did so the policeman majestically moved up, estimated the comparative wealth of the three people concerned, and falsely imagining my friend to be an actor in broad daylight, he took the taxi-man’s part, and ordered us off back to the “Angel,” telling us we ought to be thankful to be let off so lightly. He further gave the taxi-man elaborate instructions for reaching the place.