the city, dining at his club and leaving neither instructions nor
money for the maintenance of the household. For a time the Poet
was saved from the greater starvation by the care of the pretty
young secretary, but without an Iron King there was no need for a
foil. Sharp words were exchanged one morning over the propriety
of grounds in coffee; the pretty young secretary declared that she
would "have nothink more to do with him or his old potry"; and in
the afternoon he packed his trunks with his own hands and with his
own hands dragged them downstairs on to the pavement, leaving the
pretty young secretary biting viciously at the corner of a crumpled
handkerchief drenched in "White Rose."

The Private Secretary received him in a manner different from that
adopted by either the Millionaire or the Iron King. The two men
were of nearly the same age, but in a deferential, if mis-spent
life the Private Secretary had learned to be non-committal. Well
he knew that he had but one bedroom; well he knew that, on admitting
it, the Poet would claim it from him.

"A spare bed?" he echoed, when the Poet dragged his trunks into
the middle of a tiny sitting room. "Really, I have no statement
to make."

"At least you will not deny," said the Poet with truculent emphasis,
"that you undertook to find me suitable accommodation and to supply
me with a bed until it was found."

"I must refer you to the reply given to a similar question on the
twenty-third ultimo," answered the Private Secretary loftily. for
a rich reward he could not have said where he had been or what he