He had driven the large brake to the station to meet Feo and her party who were on their way down for the week-end. His temporary exile at Chilton Park, brought about by a universal disinclination to honor his checks, had been a little dull. He was delighted at the prospect of seeing people again, especially Mrs. Malwood. He was fond of Angoras and liked to hear them purr. So with a rather seedy square felt hat over one eye and a loose overcoat of Irish homespun over his riding kit, he clambered down from the high box, saw that the groom was at the horses’ heads and strolled into the station to talk over the impending strike of the Triple Alliance with the station master,—the parlor Bolshevist of Princes Risborough. An express swooped through the station as he stood on the platform and made a parachute of his overcoat. The London train was not due for fifteen minutes. Tapping on the door of Mr. Sparrow’s room, he entered to find that worthy exulting over the morning paper, his pale, tubercular face flushed with excitement. The headlines announced that “England faces revolution. Mines flood as miners steal coal and await with confidence the entire support of allied unions. Great Britain on the edge of a precipice.” “All wrong,” said Rip Van Winkle quietly. “Panicky misinterpretation of the situation, Sparrow,—much as you desire the opposite.” The station master whipped round, his fish-like eyes strangely magnified by the strong glasses in his spectacles. “What makes yer say that, m’ Lord?” he asked, even at that moment flattered at the presence of a Marquis in his office. “Labor has England by the throat.” “England has Labor by the seat of the pants, you should say, Sparrow. Take my word for it, the strike is not only doomed to eventual failure, however the fluctuations go, but the Labor movement will grow less and less terrorist in its methods from this day onwards.” Mr. Sparrow threw back his head and laughed loudly,—showing an incomplete collection of very disastrous teeth. “Well, there won’t be a damned train running by this time Monday,” he said. “I’ll bet you a thousand oak apples to one there will,” replied Lord Amesbury, “and I’ll tell you why. Every sane and law-abiding Englishman, from the small clerk to the most doddering duke, has begun to organize and this mighty revolution of yours is already as dead as mutton.” “Oh, is that so?” Mr. Sparrow laughed again.