The man rose out of bed with a sudden jerk. At the same moment the valet, with a movement which would have done credit to a juggler, placed a pair of bath slippers on his master’s feet, and with another movement of equal swiftness deposited a pair of six-pound dumbbells in his hands. The man performed six distinct exercises twelve times each, and then dropped the lumps of iron on the bed, whence the valet removed them. ‘Seven-thirty,’ said the man. ‘Yes, sir,’ said the valet, and disappeared. The man sank languidly on to the sofa, and began, with the efficiency of a highly-practised reader, to skim the papers one after the other. He led off with the _Financial_, proceeded to the _Times_, and took the rest anyhow. When he had finished, the papers lay in a tangled heap on the thick carpet. This man was pre-eminently tidy and orderly, yet few things delighted him more than, at intervals, to achieve a gigantic disorder. It was a little affectation which he permitted himself. Another little affectation was his manner of appearing always to be busy from the hour of opening his eyes to the hour of closing them. He was, in truth, a very busy man indeed; but it pleased him to seem more deeply employed than he actually was. He had a telephone affixed to his bed-head, by means of which he could communicate with his private secretary’s bedroom in the house, and also with his office in Cannon Street. This telephone tickled his fancy. He used it for the sake of using it; he enjoyed using it in the middle of the night. He went to it now, and rang imperiously. He did everything imperiously. There was a tinkling reply on the bell. ‘Are you up, Oakley? Well, get up then. Go to Cannon Street, and bring the important letters. And tell----’ He went off into a series of detailed instructions. ‘And be back here at half-past eight.’ The clock struck half-past seven. The valet entered as silently as a nun, and the modern Napoleon passed into his marble bath-room. By this time everyone in the household--that household which revolved round the autocrat as the solar system revolves round the sun--knew that the master had awakened in a somewhat dangerous mood, and that squally weather might be expected. And they all, from the page-boy to the great Mr. Oakley, the private secretary, accepted this fact as further evidence that the master’s career of prosperity had received a check.