Fish-Friers' man really gets hold of him he has won the game. The
Fish-Friers' man keeps clearing his throat and beginning, "The position is
this--"; and the Private Secretary keeps saying in a cold dispassionate
voice, "Are you going to the Lord Mayor's lunch?" or "How much will you
give to the Dyspeptic Postmen's Association?" or "What about this letter
from Bunt?"

The public man takes no notice of any one of them, but says rapidly over
and over again, "Where are my spectacles?" or "What have you done with the
brown socks?" He is playing for time. If he can put them off for a little
more, some new crisis may occur and he will be able to say that he is too
busy to deal with them now.

The Private Secretary knows this and continues to say, "Are you going to
the Lord Mayor's lunch?" The Fish-Friers' man doesn't know it, and crawls
about excitedly on the floor looking for the spectacles under the bed. When
he is well under the bed the public man tells the Private Secretary to ring
up the Bottle-Washers and the Fish-Friers and the PRIME MINISTER and
arrange things somehow, and rushes out of the room. He is hotly pursued by
the valet and the hosier and the hairdresser, but there's a taxi at the
door and with any luck he will now get clear away. In the hall, however,
the cook meets him in order to give notice, and by the time he has dealt
with that crisis the Private Secretary has had three wrong numbers and
given it up, and the Fish-Friers' man has bumped his head and given it up.
They give chase together and catch the public man just as he is escaping
from the front-door. The Private Secretary starts again about the Lord
Mayor's lunch, and the Fish-Friers' man starts again about the position.

The public man knows now that he is done, so he drives them into the taxi
and says he will talk to them on the way to the PRIME MINISTER. The taxi