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timidly to the clerk: "No doubt you speak French, sir? The words I want don't seem to come to me."

Campton had meant to leave at the same time; but some vague impulse held him back. He remembered George's postscript: "Don't be too savage to Uncle Andy," and wished he could think of some friendly phrase to ease off his leave-taking. Mr. Brant seemed to have the same wish. He stood, erect and tightly buttoned, one small hand resting on the arm of his desk-chair, as though he were posing for a cabinet size, with the photographer telling him to look natural. His lids twitched behind his protective glasses, and his upper lip, which was as straight as a ruler, detached itself by a hair's breadth from the lower; but no word came.

Campton glanced up and down the white-panelled walls, and spoke abruptly.

"There was no reason on earth," he said, "why poor young Upsher should ever have been in this thing."

Mr. Brant bowed.

"This sort of crazy impulse to rush into other people's rows," Campton continued with rising vehemence, "is of no more use to a civilized state than any other unreasoned instinct. At bottom it's nothing but what George calls the baseball spirit: just an ignorant passion for fisticuffs."

Mr. Brant looked at him intently. "When did—George say that? " he asked, with his usual cough before the name.