Captain and Mrs. Brentham arrived in London from East Africa at the end of May, 1889. You must picture Brentham with a reserve of savings of about five hundred pounds lying to his credit at Cocks’s, and a salary at the rate of seven hundred a year which will go on till some time in October. After much consideration and discussion during the voyage they have taken a furnished flat on the eighth floor of Hankey’s Mansions, St. James’s Park, as having a better address—"being close to the Government offices and the clubs, don’t you know, and of course if you have the lift going night and day it don’t matter whether you’re on the first or the eighth floor, to say nothing of the view." Lucy had timidly suggested Pardew’s Family Hotel in Great Ormond Street as being very cheap for relations of Aunt Ellen, but Roger with that wistful snobbishness of his class decided it would be rather a come-down to hail from the West Central part of London when you were wishing to impress the Foreign Office favourably; so Hankey’s it was, with lots of sunlight, superb views over the Park and the barrack ground with its military challenges and cries. Mr. Molyneux’s room at the Foreign Office. "Ah, Brentham! Thought you’d soon be turning up. Dewburn’s been writing to me about you.... Have a cigar? There are the matches. Well. Horrid thing to say, when a man’s only just arrived, but you’ve stirred up a reg’lar hornet’s nest among the unco’ guid. This confounded Nonconformist Conscience that Stead’s invented or created. There’s an obvious reference to you in the last _Review of Reviews_ and Labby’s put a very caustic article in last week’s _Truth_, trying to get at the Government’s East African policy through you. All this has mightily upset the Old Man——" Roger endeavours to give a lucid and not too lengthy account of the whole sequence of events which led up to his marriage at Unguja; expresses the most justly-felt wrath against the mosquitoes of the Press; offers to horsewhip them or have them up before a court of law.... _Molyneux_: "My _dear_ fellow, what _are_ you talking about? You’d simply do for yourself and have to quit the career. First place, horsewhipping’s out of date—dam’ low, in any case—in the second, there’s nothing _libellous_ in what they’ve written—only general application, don’t you know. If you took any action on it you’d just dot the _i_’s and cross the _t_’s and get laughed at. And as to what they say in Parliament, can’t call them into court over _that_. No. Best leave it alone. _Most_ unfortunate. Dare say not a _bit_ your fault. Still I think you might have been a trifle more prudent, not—so to speak—have run your head into the noose. _Quite_ agree with Dewburn you’ve done the _right_ thing in marrying her.... "Well: so much for that. Now how about this missing cipher? Not sure _that_ don’t upset us a bit more than your carryings-on with missionary ladies...."