“You are going to your friend at Hampstead, I suppose,” he said as he handed her into a taxicab at Charing Cross.  “I shall like to know if you succeed in getting the position with Lady Chepstow; and if you send no word to Mr. Narkom, I shall take silence as an assent and know that you have.”

And afterward, when the days grew in number and late April merged into early May and no word came, he knew that she had succeeded; and was comforted, thinking of her safely housed and perhaps in a position more congenial than the last.  At any rate, she was in England, she was again in the same land with him; and that of itself was comfort.

But other comforts were not wanting.  The full glory of tulip time was here; The Yard had no immediate occasion for his services, and time was his to dawdle in the public parks among the children, the birds, and the flowers.

“And, lord, how he do love ’em all, bless his heart!” commented Dollops in confidence to himself as he bustled about, putting the Den in order, watering the plants and touching lovingly the things that belonged to the master he adored—­his daily task when Cleek was in the Park and had no need for his services.  It was a pleasure to the boy, that service.  His whole heart was in it.  He resented anything that interfered with it even for an instant; and as at this particular time he was in the very midst of preparing a small surprise against his master’s return, he was by no means pleased when a sharp whirring sound of a telephone bell shrilled out from the adjoining room and called him from his labour of love.

“Oh, blow that thing!  A body don’t have a minute to call his own since it’s been put in,” he blurted out disgustedly, and answered the call.  “’Ullo!  Yuss; this is Cap’n Burbage’s.  Wot?  No, he aren’t in.  Dunno when he will be.  Dunno where he is.  But if there’s any messidge—­I say, who wants him?  Wot?  Oh, s’elp me.  You, is it, Mr. Narkom?  Yuss, it’s me, sir—­Dollops.  Wot?  No, sir.  Went out two hours ago.  Gone to Kensington Palace Gardens.  Tulips is in full bloom and you couldn’t hold him indoors with a chain at tulip-time, bless his heart.  Yuss, sir.  Top hat, white spats—­same as the ‘Cap’n’ always wears, sir.”

Narkom, at the other end of the line, called back:  “If I miss him, if he comes in without seeing me, tell him to wait; I’ll be round before three.  Good-bye!” then hung up the receiver and turned to the gentleman who stood by the window on the other side of the private office, agitatedly twirling the end of his thick grey-threaded moustache with one hand, while with the other he drummed a nervous tattoo upon the broad oaken sill.  “Not at home, Sir Henry; but, fortunately, I know where to find him with but little loss of time,” he said, and pressed twice upon an electric button beside his desk.  “My motor will be at the door in a couple of minutes, and with ordinary luck we ought to be able to pick him up inside of the next half-hour.”