“I was forgetting,” said Carpentaria, stopping. “Young man”--and he addressed Smithers severely--“follow me, and no nonsense!” Smithers obediently followed, pushing after Carpentaria through the curious crowds. They came at length to the Central Way, and Carpentaria halted and took Smithers by the coat collar. “Listen!” said he. “We’re much too busy to trouble with police-court proceedings. And besides, there’s your brace of penniless aunts. Cut! Clear out! Hook it! I rather admire you. See?” Smithers saw, and vanished. Carpentaria hastened on, rushing across the Central Way, scarcely avoiding cable-cars, and so, by a private passage between two shops, into the Oriental Gardens. Now, just within the Oriental Gardens, on either side of the grand entrance to them, were two spacious houses, built in the bungalow style, with enclosed gardens of their own. One of these was occupied by Josephus Ilam and his mother, and the other by Carpentaria and his half-sister, Juliette D’Avray. Between the house of Ilam and the back of the shops in Central Way was one of those small waste trifles of ground which often get left in planning a vast exhibition or show. It was skilfully hidden from the view of the public by wooden palisades, and in this palisading was a door, painted so as to escape detection. The plot of ground, about three yards by two, was already being utilized for lumber. Carpentaria entered by the door and shut it after him. A man--a middle-aged man, in a blue suit of rather shabby appearance--was seated on some planks. He started up, and then seemed to sway. “What are you doing here?” Carpentaria curtly demanded. “Look ’ere,” said the man, swaying towards Carpentaria, “I’m aw ri’--you’re aw ri’--eh? I’m a gemman. Come here to re’--rest. You leave me ’lone--I leave you ’lone. Stop, I give you my car’.” The man was obviously inebriated and Carpentaria was in no mood to spend precious minutes in diplomacy with a victim of Bacchus. He departed, shutting the door, and leaving the victim fumbling with a card-case. He meant to send some one to eject the man, but he forgot. “Say!” cried the drunkard after him, “how ju know I wazz ’ere? Mus’ been up in a b’loon--I repea’--b’loon.” In another moment Carpentaria was in the study of his bungalow, panting. “Quick!” he said to Juliette, an extremely natty little woman of thirty or so. He sank into the chair before his desk. Juliette placed some music-paper in front of him and put a pen in his hand, and he scrawled across the top of the page “The Balloon Lullaby,” and began to scribble notes--quavers, crotchets, semibreves, and some other strange wonders--all over the page. “It came to me all of a sudden,” he murmured, “while we were up in the balloon.” “Don’t talk, dear,” said Juliette. “Write.” And he wrote. When it was finished Carpentaria wiped his brow and drank a whisky and milk which Juliette had prepared for him. He sighed with content and exhaustion. The creative crisis was over.