“But that's all he would say,” poor Bill had expostulated. “All he would say!” the news-editor sneered. “Here, Mathers, take this stuff and make a quarter-col. interview out of it.” Thus it was in depressed mood that Bill on the following morning opened his _Daily._ The flaring “Country House Outrage” hit his eye; he read; in two minutes his mood was changed. A sensation at Paltley Hill! At Mr. Marrapit's! Here was his chance! Who better fitted than he to work up this story? Fortunately he knew Mr. Henry T. Bitt's private address; had the good sense to go straight to his chief. A cab took him to the editor's flat in Victoria Street. Mr. Bitt was equally enthusiastic. “Hot stuff,” said Mr. Bitt. “You've got your chance; make a splash. Go to the office and tell Lang I've put you on to it. Cut away down to the scene of the outrage and stay there as our Special Commissioner till I wire you back. Serve it up hot. Make clues if you can't find 'em. Hot, mind. H-O-T.” III. Professor Wyvern was the second reader upon whom the sensational story had particular effect. Through breakfast the Professor eyed with loving eagerness the copy of the _Daily_ that lay folded beside his plate. At intervals, “I have made a very good breakfast, now,” he would say. “Now I will try to find what Bill has written in this terrible paper.” But thrice Mrs. Wyvern lovingly checked him. “Dear William, no. You have hardly touched your sole. You must finish it, dear, every scrap, before you look at the paper. You have been eating such good breakfasts lately. Now, please, William, finish it first.” “It is as big as a shark,” the Professor grumbles, making shots with his trembling fork. “Dear William, it is a very small sole.” At last he has finished. A line catches his eye as he unfolds the _Daily_, and he chuckles: “Oh, dear! This is a very horrible paper. 'Actress and Stockbroker--Piccadilly by night.'” “Dear William, we only want to read what Bill has written. An interview, he tells us, with--” Dear William waggles his naughty old head over the actress and the stockbroker; shaky fingers unfold the centre pages; nose runs up one column and down another, then suddenly starts back burnt by the flaring “Country House Outrage.” “Dearest! Dearest! Whatever is the matter?” But dearest is speechless. Dearest can only cough and choke and splutter in convulsions of mirth over some terrific joke of which he will tell Mrs. Wyvern no more than: “He has done it. Oh, dear! oh, dear! He has done it. Oh, dear! This will be very funny indeed!” IV. It will be seen that two out of the three readers particularly interested in Mr. Bitt's splash were agreeably interested. Upon the third the effect was different. It was George's first morning in the little inn at Dippleford Admiral. An unaccustomed weight upon his legs, at which thrice he sleepily kicked without ridding himself of it, at length awoke him.