Therefore was his future black; but in the little circle he was a sort of lion. Victoria Mosel was always talking of him; Marjorie was eager to see him once and then to discard his company for ever; Lady Bolter, full of the intellectual Victorian time, wanted to be able to say that she had been in the same room with a man of whom the Prime Minister himself had said that he was the only man whose writing he really understood. The Home Secretary had met him once or twice in other people's houses; Marjorie herself and her aunt were the only two for whom he was still quite a stranger. "What train is he coming by?" said Tommy Galton, sunk into a deep chair. The Home Secretary looked at his watch, then at the clock, noted they did not correspond, frowned, and said he'd be here any time. [Illustration: _Victoria Mosel lays odds on Mr. McTaggart's saying "Dee-Boe-Hunn."_] "I'll give you evens," said Victoria Mosel, "that he calls you Dee Boe Hunn." "Done!" said Tommy Galton, putting up a finger. "Bradburys?" said Vic, sucking a pencil. "Gimme a bit o' paper." Tommy Galton wrote on his cuff. "That'll do," he said. "I often wish," bleated Aunt Amelia, "that you young people could have met John Bright. I was only in the schoolroom, of course, but my dear father had no scruples in----" She was not allowed to go on. "We can't all sit here kicking our heels till he's kind enough to parade," said Marjorie, with girlish simplicity. "No one wants you to," said Vic, delicately tearing off the last cigarette like a plaster, and sticking in another one. "I'm clamped down. Me for Hamish!" The Professor suddenly gave tongue. His exceedingly pale old eyes were wide open, and his foolish mouth almost as wide. "Oh, I think it'll be exceedingly interesting--exceedingly interesting," he quavered. "Exceedingly interesting to meet one of the new generation of ... shall we say, ah! journalists? Yes, journalists.... Journalists." "Yes, Bill," replied young Galton. "We'll say journalists." Marjorie yawned and stretched. "Well, I'm not going to wait any longer," she said, when the buzz of a motor was heard on the gravel outside, the approach of middle-class feet, the door solemnly thrown open as for a dancing bear, and the unfortunate McTaggart appeared, his name preceding him. The Home Secretary, who had preserved some of the traditions, unfolded himself painfully from his chair and stood up, greeting McTaggart with the wan smile of the public man. "Good evening, Mr. de Bohun." And behold! he pronounced it Deboon. With the business-like rapidity that became her so well, Victoria Mosel handed a crushed ball of three one-pound notes undemonstratively to Tom Galton, who stretched forward to take it and elaborately crossed out the note on his cuff.