Back once more in her room she heard two voices talking both at once excitedly in the den. Mrs. Orly had a morning visitor. She would probably stay to lunch. She peered into the little folding mirror hanging by the side of the small mantelpiece and saw a face flushed and animated so far. Her hair was as unsatisfactory as usual. As she looked she became conscious of its uncomfortable weight pinned to the back of her head and the unpleasant warm feeling of her thick fringe. By lunch-time her face would be strained and yellow with sitting at work in the cold room with her feet on the oil-cloth under the window. She glanced at the oil lamp standing in the little fireplace, its single flame glaring nakedly against the red-painted radiator. The telephone bell rang. Through the uproar of mechanical sounds that came to her ear from the receiver she heard a far off faint angry voice in incoherent reiteration. "Hullo, hullo" she answered encouragingly. The voice faded but the sounds went on punctuated by a sharp angry popping. Mr. Orly's door opened and his swift heavy tread came through the hall. Miriam looked up apprehensively, saying "Hullo" at intervals into the angry din of the telephone. He came swiftly on humming in a soft light baritone, his broad forehead, bald rounded crown and bright fair beard shining in the gloom of the hall. A crumpled serviette swung with his right hand. Perhaps he was going to the workshop. The door of the den opened. Mrs. Orly appeared and made an inarticulate remark abstractedly and disappeared. "Hullo, hullo" repeated Miriam busily into the telephone. There was a loud report and the thin angry voice came clear from a surrounding silence. Mr. Orly came in on tiptoe, sighed impatiently and stood near her drumming noiselessly on the table at her side. "Wrong number" said Miriam, "will you please ring off?" "What a lot of trouble they givya" said Mr. Orly. "I say, what's the name of the American chap Hancock was talking about at lunch yesterday?" Miriam frowned. "Can y'remember? About sea-power." "Oh" said Miriam relieved. "Mahan." "Eh?" "Mahan. May-ann." "That's it. You've got it. Wonderful. Don't forget to send off Major Moke's case sharp will ye?" Miriam's eyes scanned the table and caught sight of a half hidden tin-box. "No. I'll get it off." "Right. It's in a filthy state, but there's no time to clean it." He strode back through the hall murmuring Mahan. Miriam drew the tin from its place of concealment. It contained a mass of dirty cotton-wool upon which lay a double denture coated with tartar and joined by tarnished gold springs. "Eleven thirty sharp" ran the instruction on an accompanying scrap of paper. No address. The name of the patient was unfamiliar. Mrs. Orly put her head through the door of the den. "What did Ro want?"