into a Minister of the Crown, had left the Poet (in name, at least)
a poet and in nothing else anything at all. He acted precisely
as the Private Secretary had intended him to act, driving first to
the Lexicographer's house, where he was greeted by a suspiciously
new "TO LET" board, and thence to the Official Receiver's flat,
where a typewritten card informed him that this bell was out of
order. Embarrassed but purposeful, he directed his four-wheeler to
Eaton Square, but the blinds were down, and a semblance of mourning
draped the Iron King's house. In Park Lane a twenty-yard expanse
of straw, nine inches thick, prayed silence for the Millionaire's
quick recovery.

"I don't know where to go to next," murmured the Poet dejectedly.

"Well, I'm blest if I do," grumbled the driver. "And it's past my
tea-time. Doncher know where yer live?"

"Years ago I had rooms in Stafford's Inn," began the Poet. "Then
the Cabinet Committee..."

The cabman descended from his box for a heart to heart conversation.

"Now you look 'ere," he said. "I got a boy at 'ome the livin'
image of you..."

"But how nice!" interrupted the Poet, wondering apprehensively
whether an invitation was on its way to him.

The cabman sniffed.