The sight was so comic that I burst out laughing. Mollie did the same, jumping and clapping her hands with delight, and Miriam was not long in following suit. I was delighted to think that Lord Potter could not possibly help hearing us. The crowning point of the scene was when Tom, who had a half-holiday that afternoon, ran out of the house with a hand camera, and succeeded in taking two snapshots of the progression before it ended at the gate. Sir Herbert came back grinning, and said: "I have owed his lordship one for a long time. When I was a boy at school, he got me a swishing for pea-shooting at him." As for Lord Potter, he went off down the Culbut Road, without once turning back; and if ever a man looked like making mischief, he did. The affair with the police was soon over. I put on a dignified air, and did all that they asked me to do without making any difficulty about it. They were actually apologetic before they left, and I was not surprised when they told me that they had already found and arrested the man who had committed the burglary, and that it was only because Lord Potter had insisted that they had worried me over the matter at all. They had been quite sure all along that I could have had nothing to do with it. "Lord Potter knew that as well as you did," I said. "I rather wonder--if I may be permitted to say so--that you should have lent yourselves to pay off his scores." They looked a little foolish at that, and one of them said: "We shall not act on his instructions again. Lord Potter is, no doubt, a very important personage, but he must not think that he can make use of our service for his private ends." "I have just seen him doing the frog's march out of the garden," I said, "and I expect when you get back you will find him there, wanting to have some arrests made for assault. He looked like that, as far as I could judge from his back. You might tell him that photographs were taken of him, in a position not calculated to add lustre to his name, if they came to be published. It might be worth his while not to take any further steps." The policemen laughed and went away. Whether they gave Lord Potter the hint or not, neither Mr. Hobbs nor Sir Herbert heard anything further of their treatment of him. Later in the afternoon I called on Herman Eppstein at his office, and arranged for the transfer of the Mount Lebanon shares. He looked grave when I told him what a large block of them I had taken over, and said that there had been a distinct upward movement in Mount Lebanons during the last few days. "I'm afraid you have bought at a very bad time," he said. "I wish you had consulted me first. I could 'ave put you on to a better spec than that. You may get badly 'it. And whatever made you take all your eggs out of one basket? Why, you'll make a fortune if these 'ere shares do go up, and what'll the family say to that, eh?" "I know what I'm doing," I said stiffly.