through them at Bradshaw, who, it may be remarked, had not turned a
hair.

'Bradshaw,' he said, 'how do you explain this?'

It was merely a sighting shot, so to speak. Nobody was ever expected to
answer the question. Bradshaw, however, proved himself the exception to
the rule.

'I can explain, sir,' he said, 'if I may speak to you privately
afterwards.'

I have seldom seen anyone so astonished as Mellish was at these words.
In the whole course of his professional experience, he had never met
with a parallel case. It was hard on the poor man not to be allowed to
speak his mind about a matter of four per cent in a book-paper, but
what could he do? He could not proceed with his denunciation, for if
Bradshaw's explanation turned out a sufficient excuse, he would have to
withdraw it all again, and vast stores of golden eloquence would be
wasted. But, then, if he bottled up what he wished to say altogether,
it might do him a serious internal injury. At last he hit on a
compromise. He said, 'Very well, Bradshaw, I will hear what you have to
say,' and then sprang, like the cat in the poem, 'all claws', upon an
unfortunate individual who had scored twenty-nine, and who had been
congratulating himself that Bradshaw's failings would act as a sort of
lightning-conductor to him. Bradshaw worked off his explanation in
under five minutes. I tried to stay behind to listen, on the pretext of
wanting to tidy up my desk, but was ejected by request. Bradshaw
explained that his statement was private.