There was a change now. He had grown older, surprisingly older.
There were deeper lines about his eyes. His face was thinner. He
saw, now, that Philip's lightness had been but a passing flash of
his old buoyancy, that the old life and sparkle had gone from him.
Two years, he judged, had woven things into Philip's life which he
could not understand, and he wondered if this was why in all that
time he had received no word from his old college chum.

They had seated themselves at opposite sides of the table, and
from an inside pocket Philip produced a small bundle of papers.
From these he drew forth a map, which he smoothed out under his
hands.

"Yes, there are possibilities--and more, Greggy," he said. "I
didn't ask you up here to help me fight air and moonshine. And
I've promised you a fight. Have you ever seen a rat in a trap with
a blood-thirsty terrier guarding the little door that is about to
be opened? Thrilling sport for the prisoner, isn't it? But when
the rat happens to be human--"

"I thought it was a fish," protested Gregson, mildly. "Pretty soon
you'll be having it a girl in a trap--or at the end of a fish-
line--"

"And if I should?" interrupted Philip, looking steadily at him.
"What if I should say there is a girl--a woman--in this trap--not
only one, but a score, a hundred of them? What then, Greggy?"

"I'd say there was going to be a glorious scrap."