"Mr Tubes is a very busy man. You know that he is the Home Secretary. Is it of sufficient importance to telegraph for him?" This time the answer followed on his last word with startling rapidity. Until the last phase that was the only variation in the delivery of the sentences--that sometimes there was a pause as though the working of the mind had to make a revolution before it reached the point of the mental clutch, at others it dropped into its gear at once. "It is important enough to send a coach and four for him," was the reply. Hampden might not be convinced of this but he was satisfied of one thing: the coherence of idea was being regularly maintained. How long would it last? It occurred to him to put the question. "I shall have to go out either to send the telegram myself or to find some one who will take it," he explained. "Until Mr Tubes comes or sends his reply will you _remain here_?" It was rather eerie to be holding conversation with the fragment of a man's brain with the man himself for all practical purposes eliminated. But he seemed to have arrived at a practical understanding with the centre of sub-consciousness. "I will remain," was the unhesitating reply, and Hampden felt assured that the line would not be lost. He had not definitely settled in his mind what to do when he opened the door leading on to the common stairs. A small child who had been loitering outside in a crouching position staggered back in momentary alarm at his sudden appearance. It was a ragged girl, perhaps ten or twelve years old, with cruelly unwieldy boots upon her stockingless feet, matted hair, and a precocious face full of unchildish knowledge. The inference that she had been applying either an eye or an ear to the keyhole was overwhelming. Her fear--it was only the slum child's instinct of flight--died out when she saw the gentleman. Toffs (so ran her experience) do not hit you for nothing. "Ee's in there yet, ain't ee?" she whispered, coming back boldly and looking up confidentially to his face. "I 'eard yer talking, but I couldn't tell what yer said. 'Ow long d'yer think 'e'll last?" Sir John looked down at the child, the child who had never been young, in shuddering pity. "It was me what picked 'is 'at up, but they wouldn't let me go in," she continued, as though the fact gave her a standing in the case. "Did yer see it in there?" She looked proudly at her right hand with horrid significance. "Come in here," he said, after considering. "Can you run an errand?" Her face reflected gloating eagerness as she entered, her attitude had just a tinge of pleasurable awe. He did not permit her to go further than the hall. "Is it to do with 'im?" she asked keenly. "Yehs!" "It is to go to the post office in Fleet Street," he explained. "You must go as fast as ever you can."