The London actors had not returned from Cornwall and Switzerland.
Provincial companies enjoyed--a little anxiously owing to uncertain
receipts at the box office--a brief license on the boards of famous
play-houses. The newspapers had exhausted the stunt of the silly
season and were at their flattest and most yawn-provoking. The South
African War had reached its dreariest stage....

Bertie Adams on this close September evening had out-stayed the
other employés of _Fraser and Warren_ in their fifth floor office at
No. 88-90 Chancery Lane. He had remained after office hours to do a
little work, a little "self-improvement"; and he was just about to
close the outer office and leave the key with the housekeeper, when
the lift came surging up and out of it stepped a young man in a
summer suit and a bowler hat who, to Bertie's astonishment, not only
dashed straight at the door of the partners' room, but opened its
Yale lock with a latch-key as though long accustomed to do so. "But,
sir!..." exclaimed the junior clerk (his promotion to that rank had
tacitly dated from Vivie Warren's departure). "It's all right," said
the stranger. "I'm Mr. David Williams and I've come to draw up some
notes for Mrs. Claridge. I dare say Miss Fraser has told you I
should work in the office every now and then whilst my cousin--Miss
Warren, you know--is away. You needn't wait, though you can close
the outer office before you go; and, by the bye, you might fetch me
_Who's Who_ for the present year." All this was said a little
breathlessly.

Bertie brought the volume, then only half the size of its present
bulk, because it lacked our new nobility and gave no heed to your
favourite recreation. D.V. Williams stood in the yellow light of the
west window, reading a letter... "Cousin? No! Twin brother,