start back in alarm.

"Listen," said T. X., grasping an ivory paperknife savagely in his
hand and tapping his blotting-pad to emphasize his words, "you're
a pie!"

"I'm a policeman," said the other patiently.

"A policeman!" exclaimed the exasperated T. X. "You're worse than
a pie, you're a slud! I'm afraid I shall never make a detective
of you," he shook his head sorrowfully at the smiling Mansus who
had been in the police force when T. X. was a small boy at school,
"you are neither Wise nor Wily; you combine the innocence of a
Baby with the grubbiness of a County Parson - you ought to be in
the choir."

At this outrageous insult Mr. Mansus was silent; what he might
have said, or what further provocation he might have received may
be never known, for at that moment, the Chief himself walked in.

The Chief of the Police in these days was a grey man, rather
tired, with a hawk nose and deep eyes that glared under shaggy
eyebrows and he was a terror to all men of his department save to
T. X. who respected nothing on earth and very little elsewhere.
He nodded curtly to Mansus.

"Well, T. X.," he said, "what have you discovered about our friend
Kara?"

He turned from T. X. to the discomforted inspector.