leader and had started _Reconstruction_, backed with the money of the great mine owners and merchants who should have been members of the Cabinet, for the purpose of cleaning out the Augean stables. He numbered among his contributors every political free-thinker in England,—ex-members of Parliament, ex-war correspondents who spoke with horror of brass hats, and men who had served in all capacities in the War and were, for that reason, determined to remove the frightful burden of taxation caused by the maintenance of a great war machine for the indulgence of escapades in Mesopotamia and Ireland. Lytham was young,—not yet thirty-five; unmarried, so that his purpose was single, his time his own. His paper was his wife and he was out for blood,—not with a bludgeon, not with a gun, but with an intellect which, supported by other intellects, alone provided some hope for the future of England and the Human Family. He had fastened upon Fallaray and dogged his heels. He regarded him as a brother, was ready to back him through thick and thin and had come home with him that night to discuss one or two of the great questions of the moment and to make plans for quick functioning. When Fallaray led the way into his den and turned up the lights—all of them, so that there should be no shadows in the room and no ghosts—Lytham took his place with his back to the fire, standing in the frame of black oak like the picture of a crusader who had left his armor at home; he liked that room for its size and simplicity and tradition, its books and prints and unashamed early-Victorianism. He was as tall as Fallaray but not as thin and did not look as though the fires of his soul had burnt him down to the bone. His hair was brown and crisp and short, his moustache small, his nose straight and his eyes large and full of humor and irony. Except for his mouth there was nothing sensitive in his face and the only sign of restlessness that he permitted himself to show was in his habit of lighting one cigarette from the butt of another just finished,—the cheapest stinkers that were on the market and which had been smoked by the men of the regiment to which he had been attached from the beginning to the end of the War,—fags, in other words. His holder was far too long for the comfort of people who stood too close. “Now, Fallaray,” he said, “let’s get down to it.” Fallaray sat on the edge of his desk which he gripped tight with both his hands. “I’m ready,” he answered.