They obeyed, Rees only after a further useless struggle. Dredlinton, who had been speechless for the last few seconds, gazed with horror-stricken eyes at the third chair. Wingate smiled at him grimly. "That third chair, Dredlinton," he announced, "is for you." The terrified man made an ineffectual dash for the door. "You mean to make a prisoner of me in my own house?" he shouted, as he found himself in the clutches of one of the footmen. "What fool's game is this? You know you can't keep it up, Wingate. You'll be transported, man. Come, confess it's a joke. Tell that man to take these damned cords away." "It is a joke," Wingate assured him gravely, "but it may need a very peculiar sense of humour to appreciate it. However, you need not fear. Your life is not threatened.--Now, Dickenson, the loaf." The third man stepped back to the door and, from the hands of another servant who was waiting there, took an ordinary cottage loaf of bread. The three men now were seated around the table, bound to their chairs and gagged. In the middle of the table, just beyond their reach, Wingate, leaning over them, placed the loaf of bread. "I am now," he announced, standing a little back, "going to tell Grant to release your gags. You will probably all try shouting. I can assure you that it is quite hopeless. This room looks out, as you know, upon a courtyard. The street is on the other side of the house. Every person under this roof is in my employ. There is no earthly chance of your being heard by any one. Still, if it pleases you to shout, shout!--Now, Grant!" The man unfastened the gags,--first Phipps', then Rees', and finally Dredlinton's. Curiously enough, not one of the three men raised their voices. Wingate's words seemed to have impressed them. Phipps drew one or two deep breaths, Stanley Rees rubbed his mouth on his sleeve. Dredlinton was the only one who broke into anything approaching violent speech. "My God, Wingate," he exclaimed, "if you think I'll ever forget this, you're mistaken! I'll see you in prison for it, whatever it costs me!" "The after-consequences of this little melodrama," Phipps interposed, with grim fury, "certainly present something of a problem, I have wondered, during the last hour or so, whether you can be perfectly sane, Wingate. What good can you expect to do by this brigandage?" "The very word 'brigandage'," Wingate observed, with a smile, "suggests my answer--ransom." "But you can't want money?" Phipps protested. "You know what I want," was the stern rejoinder. "You and I have already discussed it when you came to see me about that young man." Phipps laughed uneasily. "I remember some preposterous suggestion about selling wheat," he admitted. "If you think, however, that you can alter our entire business principles by a piece of foolery like this, you are making the mistake of your life."