editor of the _Evening Graphite_ with fifty sovereigns in exchange for
the bit of paper, and the editor, handing to Miss Jennie the envelope
containing the gold, saw her drive off for Brixton, while he turned, not
to resume his game of dominoes at the cafe, but to his office, to write
the leader which would express in good set terms the horror he felt at
the action of the Board of Public Construction.




CHAPTER III.

JENNIE INTERVIEWS A FRIGHTENED OFFICIAL.


It was a little past seven o'clock when Miss Baxter's hansom drove up to
the two-storeyed house in Rupert Square numbered 17. She knocked at the
door, and it was speedily opened by a man with some trace of anxiety on
his clouded face, who proved to be Hazel himself, the clerk at the Board
of Public Construction. "You are Mr. Hazel?" she ventured, on entering.

"Yes," replied the man, quite evidently surprised at seeing a lady
instead of the man he was expecting at that hour; "but I am afraid I
shall have to ask you to excuse me; I am waiting for a visitor who is a
few minutes late, and who may be here at any moment."

"You are waiting for Mr. Alder, are you not?"

"Yes," stammered the man, his expression of surprise giving place to one
of consternation.