they thought it would be hard luck on the poor child's people. And while they were discussin' it, Chester ran the thing into his own finger by mistake. While J.-B. was waitin' to see him swell up and turn black, and feelin' bad lest he should be told to suck it (he knows Chester doesn't really value him at his true worth, you see), Chester whipped out his penknife and gouged a great slice out of his finger as you'd cut cheese, all round the prick. He turned as white as chalk, J.-B. says, but never screamed, except to let out one curse. And when he'd done it, and had the shorthand typist in from J.-B.'s room to tie it up, he began to giggle--you know that sad, cynical giggle of his that disconcerts solemn people so much--and said he'd have the beastly weapon cleaned and take it home and frame it in glass, with the other mementoes of a people's hate.... I say, I do waste your time in here, don't I? And my own; that's to say the government's. I'm off." "Gay child," Kitty murmured to her neighbour as he went. "He blooms in an office like an orchid in a dust-bin. And very nice too. I remember being nearly as bright at his age; though, for my sins, I was never in Q.M.G. A wonderful Branch that is." Thereupon she threw away her cigarette, wrote five letters with extraordinary despatch and undepartmental conciseness of style, and went to have tea in the canteen. 4 The Minister was having tea too, looking even paler than usual, with his left hand in a sling. Kitty put up her eye-glasses and looked at him with increased interest. As ministers go, he was certainly of an interesting appearance; she had always thought that. She rather liked the paradoxical combination of shrewdness and idealism, sullenness and humour, in his white, black-browed, clever face. He looked patient, but patient perforce, as if he rode natural impatience on a curb. He looked as if he might know a desperate earnestness, but preferred to keep it at arm's length with a joke; his earnestness would be too grim and violent to be an easy and natural companion to him. He looked as if he might get very badly hurt, but would cut out the hurt and throw it away with the cold promptness of the surgeon. He was not yet forty, but looked more, perhaps because he enjoyed bad health. At this moment he was eating a rock bun and talking to Vernon Prideaux. One difference between them was that Prideaux looked an intelligent success, like a civil servant, or a rising barrister or M.P., and Chester looked a brilliant failure, and more like a Sinn Feiner or a Bolshevist. Only not really like either of these, because he didn't look as if he would muff things. He might go under, but his revolutions wouldn't. Kitty, who too greatly despised people who muffed things, recognised the distinction. She had a friend whose revolutions, which were many, always did go under.... There was a queer, violent strength about the Minister.