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“Yes, Mr. Hankin.”

“That's all. And, oh, yes! Ask Mr. Smayle to let me have the Dairyfields guard-book.”

“Yes, Mr. Hankin.”

Miss Rossiter tucked her note-book under her arm, closed the glass-panelled door noiselessly after her and tripped smartly down the corridor. Peeping through another glass-panelled door, she observed Mr. Ingleby seated on a revolving chair with his feet on the cold radiator, and talking with great animation to a young woman in green, perched on the corner of the writing-table.

“Excuse me,” said Miss Rossiter, with perfunctory civility, “but Mr. Hankin says can you spare him a moment, Mr. Ingleby?”

“If it's Tom-Boy Toffee,” replied Mr. Ingleby defensively, “it's being typed. Here! you'd better take these two bits along and make it so. That will lend an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise—”

“It isn't Tom-Boy. It's a new copy-writer.”

“What, already?” exclaimed the young woman. “Before those shoes were old! Why, they only buried little Dean on Friday.”

“Part of the modern system of push and go,” said Mr. Ingleby. “All very distressing in an old-fashioned, gentlemanly firm. Suppose I've got to put this blighter through his paces. Why am I always left with the baby?”