that the time has come to close the conversation. All Fenn's prudence,
however, had gone to the four winds.

"If you wanted to tell me I was not fit to be head of the house, you
needn't have done it before a roomful of fags. How do you think I can
keep order in the house if you do that sort of thing?"

Mr Kay overcame his impulse to end the interview abruptly in order to
put in a thrust.

"You do not keep order in the house, Fenn," he said, acidly.

"I do when I am not interfered with."

"You will be good enough to say 'sir' when you speak to me, Fenn,"
said Mr Kay, thereby scoring another point. In the stress of the
moment, Fenn had not noticed the omission.

He was silenced. And before he could recover himself, Mr Kay was in
his study, and there was a closed, forbidding door between them.

And as he stared at it, it began slowly to dawn upon Fenn that he had
not shown up to advantage in the recent interview. In a word, he had
made a fool of himself.




III