The landlord hesitated between fear of Mr. Chowdler and the danger of losing a wealthy customer who drank champagne every night and paid exactly twice as much for the room as Mr. Chowdler did. But fear of Mr. Chowdler prevailed; and, when young Mr. Veal returned from his day’s sport at five in the afternoon, he found his own effects in the passage and Mr. Chowdler, in shirt sleeves, busily engaged in installing himself in the disputed apartment. Mr. Veal, though not deficient in bounce, was not remarkable for his physical proportions. Perhaps a long and fatiguing day in the snow, in the course of which he had taken many severe falls, had damped his spirits; or, perhaps the sight of Mr. Chowdler in shirt sleeves, with his broad shoulders, bullet head, red face, and determined jaw, was more formidable than anything he had anticipated. At all events he lost his nerve, and, after a little bluster and some futile threats, he withdrew to abuse the landlord, leaving Mr. Chowdler in possession. “I engaged this room in 1896,” Mr. Chowdler shouted after him, “and I intend to keep it.” And he kept it. However, the victory of the bedroom did not end the campaign against the committee; it only spurred the enemy to greater exertions. And young Veal, panting for revenge, became the recognised leader of a guerilla campaign. No step that the committee took was allowed to pass unchallenged; no rule was made but it was straightway broken, no notice was posted without provoking a counter-notice or a parody. Half the hotel was on terms of active hostility with the other half. The older men and their wives stood by the committee, the younger ones rallied round the banner of Veal. And a climax seemed to have been reached one afternoon, when Veal and a friend dashed across the sacred enclosure, where Messrs. Chowdler, Plashy and Weatherbury were cutting figures, kicked away the orange which formed the centre of their evolutions, and spilled Mr. Chowdler--accidentally, as they maintained; of set purpose and malice aforethought, as others asserted. After this anything was possible. But the situation was saved by the timely arrival of Lord Budleigh of Salterton and his brother the Admiral. By a masterly stroke of policy they were co-opted on to the committee before they had been five minutes in the hotel; and the opposition collapsed. For even in moments of the wildest aberration, a hotelful of English folk knows the value of a lord. Moreover, Lord Budleigh was a man of courteous and conciliatory manners, far less exclusive in his behaviour than either Mr. Chowdler or the Hon. Fitzroy Plashy, and tolerant of the vagaries of youth; while his brother the Admiral, who was out to enjoy himself and sublimely unconscious of anything amiss, fraternised with everybody in the most natural and friendly way. Within eight-and-forty hours, Mr. Veal found himself without followers and left the hotel. The committee had triumphed, and, with the committee, Mr. Chowdler.