dashes off, leaving the hosier and the hairdresser and the valet wringing
their hands in the hall.

The only thing the public man can do now is to invent a new crisis for the
Private Secretary, who is still saying in a cold dispassionate voice, "Are
you going to the Lord Mayor's lunch?"

So he thinks of one of the letters he has hidden in his dressing-gown and
tells the Private Secretary that he must have that letter for the
Bottle-Washers' meeting. Then he stops the taxi at a place where there is
no Underground and no 'bus, and pushes the Private Secretary out. He has
disposed of the Private Secretary for the day.

But the Fish-Friers' man's throat is practically clear by now and he gets
to work at once. The public man pays no attention but prepares in his mind
his opening sentences to the PRIME MINISTER. In the Park he sees two other
public men walking and he takes them into the cab. Each of them has
discovered some entirely new smells and starts talking about them at once
very fast. The public man promises to go and try them all immediately. When
he gets to the PRIME MINISTER'S he rings up and cancels the Fish-Friers and
the Bottle-Washers. When he has done that the Assistant-Secretary to the
PRIME MINISTER'S Principal Private Secretary's Secretary comes out and says
that the PRIME MINISTER has been called away suddenly to Geneva.

The public man then goes off after the new smells. A dog's life.

A.P.H.

* * * * *