Lord Tilbury felt no inclination to embark upon a battle of words in which he appeared to be in opposition to an expert. Dazedly he flapped out into the hall, the grey flannel trousers swirling about his feet. At the front door, however, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet fired the most important shell in his ammunition wagon. He turned at bay. “Wait!” he cried. “I may add----” “No, you mayn’t,” said Sam. “I wish to add----” “Keep moving!” “I insist on informing you,” shouted Lord Tilbury, plucking at the trousers with a nautical twitch, “of this one thing: Your uncle said in his cable that you were to take the next boat back to America.” It had not been Sam’s intention to permit anything to shake the stern steeliness of his attitude, but this information did it. He stopped midway in an offensive sniff designed to afford a picturesque illustration of his view on the other’s air-poisoning qualities and gazed at him blankly. “Did he say that?” “Yes, he did.” Sam scratched his chin thoughtfully. Lord Tilbury began to feel a little better. “And,” he continued, “as I should imagine that a young man of your intellectual attainments has little scope for making a living except by sponging on his rich relatives, I presume that you will accede to his wishes. In case you may still suppose that you are a member of the staff of Tilbury House, I will disabuse you of that view. You are not.” Sam remained silent; and Lord Tilbury, expanding and beginning to realise that there is nothing unpleasant about a battle of words provided that the battling is done in the right quarter, proceeded. “I only engaged you as a favour to your uncle. On your merits you could not have entered Tilbury House as an office boy. I say,” he repeated in a louder voice, “that, had there been no question of obliging Mr. Pynsent, I would not have engaged you as an office boy.” Sam came out of his trance. “Are you still here?” he said, annoyed. “Yes, I am still here. And let me tell you----” “Listen!” said Sam. “If you aren’t out of this house in two seconds, I’ll take those trousers back.” Every Achilles has his heel. Of all the possible threats that Sam could have used, this was probably the only one to which Lord Tilbury, in his dangerously elevated and hostile frame of mind, would have paid heed. For one moment he stood swelling like a toy balloon, then he slid out and the door banged behind him. A dark shape loomed up before Lord Tilbury as he stood upon the gravel outside the portal of Mon Repos. Beside this shape there frolicked another and a darker one. “’Evening, sir.” Lord Tilbury perceived through the gloom that he was being addressed by a member of the force. He made no reply. He was not in the mood for conversation with policemen. “Bringing your dog back,” said the officer genially. “Found ’er roaming about at the top of the street.”