the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day
in the cloakroom he said, "Your great-grandmother--"

"Not a word against her," I said; and he held his peace.

I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking
to three new members about his fatness as though he was in search
of other recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came.

"Mr. Formalyn!" bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram
and opened it at once.

"For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft."

"H'm," said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the
rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently
promised that I made a most excellent lunch.

I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the
upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I
had done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar.

"Mr. Pyecraft?" said I, at the front door.

They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days.

"He expects me," said I, and they sent me up.

I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing.