[Illustration: The sight of a figure staggering up a snowdrift to a bedroom window in Keppel Street aroused no astonishment in the breast of a stolid policeman.] Besides, the figure was pounding on the window, and burglars don't generally do that. Presently the sleeper within awoke. From the glow of his oil-stove he could see that it was past twelve. "Something gone wrong at the office?" Fisher muttered. "Hang the paper! Why bother about publishing _Chat_ this weather?" He rolled out of bed, and opened the window, draught of icy air caught his heart in a grip like death for the moment. Gough scrambled into the room, and made haste to shut out the murderous air. "Nearly five below zero," he said. "You must come down to the office, Mr. Fisher." Fisher lit the gas. Just for the moment he was lost in admiration of Gough's figure. His head was muffled in a rag torn from an old sealskin jacket. He was wrapped from head to foot in a sheepskin recently stripped from the carcase of an animal. "Got the dodge from an old Arctic traveller," Gough explained. "It's pretty greasy inside, but it keeps that perishing cold out." "I said I shouldn't come down to the office to-night," Fisher muttered. "This is the only place where I can keep decently warm. A good paper is no good to us--we shan't sell five thousand copies to-morrow." "Oh, yes, we shall," Gough put in eagerly; "Hampden, the member for East Battersea, is waiting for you. One of the smart city gangs has cornered the coal supply. There is about half a million tons in London, but there is no prospect of more for days to come. The whole lot was bought up yesterday by a small syndicate, and the price to-morrow is fixed at three pounds per ton--to begin with. Hampden is furious." Fisher shovelled his clothes on hastily. The journalistic instinct was aroused. At his door Fisher staggered back as the cold struck him. With two overcoats, and a scarf round his head, the cold seemed to drag the life out of him. A brilliant moon was shining in a sky like steel, the air was filled with the fine frosty needles, a heavy hoar coated Gough's fleecy breast. The gardens in Russell Square were one huge mound, Southampton Row was one white pipe. It seemed to Gough and Fisher that they had London to themselves. They did not speak, speech was next to impossible. Fisher staggered into his office and at length gasped for brandy. He declared that he had no feeling whatever. His moustache hung painfully, as if two heavy diamonds were dragging at the ends of it. The fine athletic figure of John Hampden, M.P., raged up and down the office. Physical weakness or suffering seemed to be strangers to him.