"I--oh! I was busy," his host answered. "A lot of official correspondence from the Foreign Office, you know--things I ought to have seen to this morning instead of shooting. Correspondence always crowds upon me if I go out of town even for a couple of days." "But you've done now--haven't you?" asked his guest, glancing at the littered table. "Just finished. But I'm awfully sorry to have kept you fellows waiting. The colonel's so infernally prompt at feeding-time. They say at the Junior that he doesn't vary five minutes at dinner once in six months." "Well, come along, old fellow. Don't wait to finish." He seated himself on the edge of the big writing-table while Dudley busied himself in replacing some letters he had taken from the steel despatch-box which accompanied him everywhere. Smoking a cigarette, and swinging his legs easily, Benthall waited while his host--who had pointed out that he could not leave confidential documents open for the servants to pry into--straightened his papers, and put them together with the communications littering the table, in the box, afterwards locking it. Only one was left on the table, the despatch which Lord Stockbridge had ordered him to destroy. This he carried to the fire, lit one corner, and held it until it was all consumed, afterwards destroying the tinder with the poker. "What's that you're so careful to burn?" asked Benthall, interested. "Oh, nothing, my dear Harry--nothing," answered the Under-Secretary in a nonchalant manner. "Only a despatch." "From Stockbridge, or one of the other Ministers, I suppose?" "Yes." "But why did you burn it?" "In order that it shouldn't fall into anybody else's hands." "Something very confidential, then?" "Yes, something extremely confidential," answered Chisholm. "But come along, old fellow, let's go to dinner, or the colonel will never forgive me." CHAPTER EIGHT. SHOWS A POLITICIAN AND A POLICY. Dudley Chisholm, with the excuse that his presence was urgently required at the Foreign Office, returned to town by the first train on the following day, leaving the colonel and Benthall to continue their sport. He would probably return in a couple of days, he said, but Lord Stockbridge wished to explain to him the line of policy which he intended to adopt towards France, with a view to lessening the tension between the two nations, and to give him certain instructions as to the conduct of the forthcoming debate in the House. As both his guests understood that a man holding such a position was liable at any moment to be called up to town, they made the best of their disappointment, wished him good luck when the time came for his departure, and went out with the head-keeper for a day's sport in Parnholt Wood.