“Have we won?” he asked sharply.

“That I can’t say, Mr. Cannon,” answered Haim.

“Well, then, how do you know he’s heard?  Has he told you?”

“No,” said the factotum mysteriously.  “But I think he’s heard.”  And upon this Mr. Haim slouched off quite calmly.  Often he had assisted at the advent of such vital news in the office—­news obtained in advance by the principals through secret channels—­and often the news had been bad.  But the firm’s calamities seemed never to affect the smoothness of Mr. Haim’s earthly passage.

The door into the principals’ room opened, and Mr. Enwright’s head showed.  The gloomy, resenting eyes fixed George for an instant.

“Well, you’ve lost that competition,” said Mr. Enwright, and he stepped into full view.  His unseen partner had ceased to dictate, and the shorthand-clerk could be heard going out by the other door.

“No!” said George, in a long, outraged murmur.  The news seemed incredible and quite disastrous; and yet at the same time had he not, in one unvisited corner of his mind, always foreknown it?  Suddenly he was distressed, discouraged, disillusioned about the whole of life.  He thought that Everard Lucas, screwing up a compass, was strangely unmoved.  But Mr. Enwright ignored Lucas.

“Who’s got it?” George asked.

“Whinburn.”

“That chap!...  Where are we?”

“Nowhere.”

“Not placed?”

“Not in it.  Skelting’s second.  And Grant third.  I shouldn’t have minded so much if Grant had got it.  There was something to be said for his scheme.  I knew we shouldn’t get it.  I knew that perfectly well—­not with Corver assessing.”

George wondered that his admired principal should thus state the exact opposite of what he had so often affirmed during the last few weeks.  People were certainly very queer, even the best of them.  The perception of this fact added to his puzzled woe.

“But Whinburn’s design is grotesque!” he protested borrowing one of Mr. Enwright’s adjectives.

“Of course it is.”

“Then why does Sir Hugh Corver go and give him the award?  Surely he must know——­”

“Know!” Mr. Enwright growled, destroying Sir Hugh and his reputation and his pretensions with one single monosyllable.

“Then why did they make him Assessor—­that’s what I can’t understand.”

“It’s quite simple,” rasped Mr. Enwright.  “They made him assessor because he’s got so much work to do it takes him all his time to trot about from one job to another on his blooming pony.  They made him assessor because his pony’s a piebald pony.  Couldn’t you think of that for yourself?  Or have you been stone deaf in this office for two years?  It stands to reason that a man who’s responsible for all the largest new eyesores in London would impress any corporation.  Clever chap, Corver!  Instead of wasting his time in travel and study, he made a speciality of learning how to talk to committees.  And he was always full of ideas like the piebald pony, ever since I knew him.”