Then he said quite hotly, ’I wish you to understand very clearly, my good man, that a gentleman’s name can’t be dragged through the gutter to bolster up the circulation of your wretched sheet, whatever it may be.’

‘It is ——­’ I named a journal of enormous sales which specialises in scholastic, military, and other scandals.  ’I don’t know yet what it can’t do, Mr. Wontner.’

‘I didn’t know that I was dealing with a reporter’ said Mr. Wontner.

We were all halted outside a shut door.  Ipps had followed us.

‘But surely you want it in the papers, don’t you?’ I urged.  ’With a scandal like this, one couldn’t, in justice to the democracy, be exclusive.  We’d syndicate it here and in the United States.  I helped you out of the sack, if you remember.’

‘I wish to goodness you’d stop talking!’ he snapped, and sat down on a chair.  Stalky’s hand on my shoulder quietly signalled me out of action, but I felt that my fire had not been misdirected.

‘I’ll answer for him,’ said Stalky to Wontner, in an undertone that dropped to a whisper.  I caught—­’Not without my leave—­dependent on me for market-tips,’ and other gratifying tributes to my integrity.

Still Mr. Wontner sat in his chair, and still we waited on him.  The Infant’s face showed worry and heavy grief; Stalky’s, a bright and bird-like interest; mine was hidden behind his shoulders, but on the face of Ipps were written emotions that no butler should cherish towards any guest.  Contempt and wrath were the least of them.  And Mr. Wontner was looking full at Ipps, as Ipps was looking at him.  Mr. Wontner’s father, I understood, kept a butler and two footmen.

‘D’you suppose they’re shamming, in order to get off?’ he said at last.  Ipps shook his head and noiselessly threw the door open.  The boys had finished their dinner and were fast asleep—­one on a sofa, one in a long chair—­their faces fallen back to the lines of their childhood.  They had had a wildish night, a hard day, that ended with a telling-off from an artist, and the assurance they had wrecked their prospects for life.  What else should youth do, then, but eat, and drink ’81 port, and remember their sorrows no more?

Mr. Wontner looked at them severely, Ipps within easy reach, his hands quite ready.  ‘Childish,’ said Mr. Wontner at last.  ’Childish but necessary.  Er—­have you such a thing as a rope on the premises, and a sack—­two sacks and two ropes?  I’m afraid I can’t resist the temptation.  That man understands, doesn’t he, that this is a private matter?’

‘That man,’ who was me, was off to the basement like one of Infant’s own fallow-deer.  The stables gave me what I wanted, and coming back with it through a dark passage, I ran squarely into Ipps.  ‘Go on!’ he grunted.  ’The minute he lays hands on Master Bobby, Master Bobby’s saved.  But that person ought to be told how near he came to being assaulted.  It was touch-and-go with me all the time from the soup down, I assure you.’