"If he had been burnt in these days every one would have suspected the
Suffragettes," observed Mellowkent.

"Poultry-keeping, now," resumed Caiaphas, "that's a subject that might
crop up in a novel dealing with English country life. Here we have all
about it: 'The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal instinct in the
Minorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and cure. Ducklings for the early
market, how fattened.' There, you see, there it all is, nothing
lacking."

"Except the maternal instinct in the Minorca, and that you could hardly
be expected to supply."

"Sporting records, that's important, too; now how many men, sporting men
even, are there who can say off-hand what horse won the Derby in any
particular year? Now it's just a little thing of that sort--"

"My dear sir," interrupted Mellowkent, "there are at least four men in my
club who can not only tell me what horse won in any given year, but what
horse ought to have won and why it didn't. If your book could supply a
method for protecting one from information of that sort it would do more
than anything you have yet claimed for it."

"Geography," said Caiaphas, imperturbably; "that's a thing that a busy
man, writing at high pressure, may easily make a slip over. Only the
other day a well-known author made the Volga flow into the Black Sea
instead of the Caspian; now, with this book--"

"On a polished rose-wood stand behind you there reposes a reliable and up-