"I really think, gentlemen," said Sir Reuben Jope, "that the City should recognize Miss Munt's extremely gallant behavior. I presume, Mr. Town Clerk, it is competent to do so." "Oh, quite, sir--oh, quite." In the expressive words in which the Mayor reconstructed the scene that evening for the benefit of the Mayoress, "that Aylett was grinning all over his lantern-jawed mug like a Barbary ape." "Then I shall propose at the next meeting of the Council that a public presentation be made to Miss Munt." "I shall be glad to second that, Sir Reuben," said Mr. Alderman Limpenny, "when the time comes to do so." But the Mayor interposed with asperity: "No, no, no, gentlemen. We can't have anything of the kind. Very good of you, I'm sure, but we must get on with the business." His worship rapped smartly upon the municipal mahogany. "This is war time, remember. We've got to discuss that contract of Perkins and Baylis. Seems to me, as I said at the last meeting, that those jockeys are over-charging the city forty per cent. You know, gentlemen, we've got to stop this leakage of public money. Whatever they may do in Whitehall, we are not going to stand for it here. Signing blank checks and dropping them in Corporation Square is not our form. As long as I sit in this chair there is going to be strict control of the public purse. And there is not going to be graft in this city neither. This is not Westminster. We don't propose to allow a public department to make a little mistake in its accounts of a few odd millions sterling and then jog quietly on as if nothing had occurred." "Hear! hear!" from the City Treasurer. "This war is costing the British people more than seven millions a day at the present time and to my mind it's wonderful that they are able to do it at the price. However, gentlemen, that is by the way. Let us return to the contract of Perkins and Baylis." Truth to tell the contract of Perkins and Baylis had less attraction for the Committee at that particular moment than the picture in the _Tribune_. Somehow, the picture had captured its imagination. Whether it was the leggings, the "bobbed" hair, the Joan of Arc profile, or the "gallus" smile of the undefeated Miss Sally, it was quite certain that the last had not been heard of her historic actions. The Committee of Ways and Means was not alone in its response to the picture in the _Tribune_ and the great deeds it commemorated. It was the talk of the whole city. Josiah moved that day and for many days in a kind of reflected glory. Wherever he went congratulations were showered upon him. Three cheers were given him at the Club when he came in to lunch. There was a decided tendency to identify him personally with Sally's fame, which, if exceedingly gratifying, was in the peculiar circumstances not a little disconcerting.