are you going to do about it?" he continued with the relentlessness
of a man who likes a prompt decision, even if it be a wrong one.
"You know nothing about business, I'm sure; leases, premiums,
insurance, all that sort of thing. You're in a hole; I don't see
what more there is to be said."

So far the Poet, his mind wavering wearily between Glebe Place and
Victoria Street, had said nothing; he turned silently to the Iron
King, wondering how, without being rude, to indicate his desire
for bed.

"I saw rather a decent place that might suit you," drawled the
Private Secretary, smoothing a wrinkle out of his shapely silk
socks. "It's next to my Chief's in Belgrave Square. Of course,
I don't know what rent they want for it..."

The Iron King shook his head.

"He couldn't afford it," he said, speaking through and around and
over the Poet. "Now I'm told that there are some very comfortable
and cheap boarding-houses near Kensington Palace Gardens...."

The Poet drew the cork of a fresh bottle of whisky and collected
four unbroken tumblers, a pewter mug and two breakfast cups without
handles. As so often before, his destiny seemed to be slipping
out of his control into the hands of the practical, strong-voiced
men who filled his sitting-room to overflowing and would not
let him go to bed. The Military Attache knew of a maisonnette in
Albemarle Street; the Official Receiver had been recently brought
into professional contact with a fine Georgian property in