"What on earth ..." he began. "Look here, Whaley, have you been drinking? ... Now, mark me, Whaley!" Humphrey de Bohun could speak with astonishing decision when he felt quite secure that the person spoken to was unable to answer back. "I've always made one absolute rule in this house. Any servant of mine who is found the worse for liquor--I don't care _where_," and he swept his feeble head down to the southwest, "I don't care _how_"--he swept it again--"I don't ... damn it, I don't even care on _what_! leaves me there and then!" He leaned back again, somewhat exhausted. "You wound me, sir," said George Whaley with dignity. "Ah, sir! you wound me! Indeed you do!" "Wound your what?" said the Home Secretary, without sufficient consideration. "My honour, sir," said George Whaley. "And a loyal heart." This time he remembered the connection of the word "heart" with the appropriate gesture, and he planked his hand on his merrythought with the noise of a distant 9.2. The Home Secretary remembered the lessons of his youth, the high traditions of the de Bohuns. "I owe you an apology, Whaley," he said, in the appropriate faded-earnest manner. "But the truth is, I can't pretend to follow what you were saying. I don't suggest that you spoke too quickly.... I was in a reverie when you came in. The fault is mine. Proceed." And in his turn George Whaley proceeded--but the chain was broken; he was thrown back upon impromptu too; and a native terseness, not to say inhibition of speech, returned to him. "Well, sir," and he coughed, "I'm afraid it's rather a delicate matter," and he looked at the nails of his fingers. "Perhaps I ought to plunge _in medias res_." He sighed. "I've 'eard it's usually the wiser plan in cases like these." He stood for some fifteen seconds, his bold head with its fringe of grey hair slightly on one side, and gazing at the exalted culprit with infinite compassion. Then did George Whaley begin to shake that head, and there escaped him words unusual to his daily life, but native to his reading of fiction and to his experience on the stage. "Ah me! Ah me!" he said. "Look here, Whaley," said his master smartly. "What's the matter? Are you ill? Are you mad? Have you"--in a softer voice--"have you perhaps suffered some sudden bereavement?" "Only the bereavement of a loyal heart deceived, bewildered," moaned George Whaley, quoting textually from _The Waifs of the Whirlwind_. He linked his hands before his ample waistcoat and hung his saddened head. [Illustration: _The Home Secretary's Butler taking the liberty to observe: "Thou art the man."_] "Upon my word!" cried Humphrey de Bohun, moved to unexpected energy by an intolerable boredom, "this kind of thing's got to stop. Speak out, man, and don't make a fool of yourself!" He pulled out his watch. "I've not got all the time there is! Hurry up, now! Surely you can speak plainly!"