“Ah, here you are.”  And he chuckled amicably, and gave Dale a roguish nod.  “You’ve had your wires pulled A1 for you.  It’s decided to stretch a point in your favor.  Not to make a secret, they don’t wish to run counter to Mr. B.’s wishes.  You have been lucky, Mr. Dale, in having him behind you.”

Dale gulped, but did not say anything.

“Very well.  I am to inform you that you will be reinstated; but—­in order to allow the talk to blow over—­you will not resume your duties for a fortnight.  You will take a fortnight’s holiday—­from now—­on full pay.”

Dale said nothing.  He could have said so much.  At this moment he felt that his victory had been intrinsically a defeat.  But the strength had gone from him; and in its place there was only joy—­weak but immense joy in the knowledge that all had ended happily.  And the world would say that he had won.

V

Outside in the streets his joy increased.  Nothing had mattered.  Beneath all surface sensations there was the deep fundamental rapture:  as of a wild animal that has been caught, and is now loose and free—­a squirrel that has escaped from the trap, and, whisking and bounding through sunlight and shadow, understands that its four paws are still under it, and that only a little of its fur is left in those iron teeth.  Security after peril—­articulate man or dumb brute, can one taste a fuller bliss?

But he must share and impart it.  Mavis!  He might not go dashing back to Hampshire—­the fortnight’s exile prevented him from joining her there.  A broad grin spread across his face.  What was that learned saying that his old schoolmaster, Mr. Fenley, used to be so fond of repeating?  “If Mahomet can not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mahomet.”

The memory of this classical quotation tickled him, and he went chuckling into the Cannon Street post office and wrote out a telegraph-form.

“Reinstatement.  Come at once.  Shall expect you this evening without fail.”

Having sent off the telegram, he presently ordered his dinner in the grill-room of a Ludgate Hill restaurant.

“Yes, let’s see your notion of a well-cooked rumpsteak.  And I’ll try some of the famous lager beer....  Oh, bottle or draught’s all one to me;” and he snapped his fingers and laughed.  “Now, sharp’s the word, Mister waiter.  I’m fairly famished.”

The lager beer, served in a glass vase, was delicious—­sunbeams distilled to make a frothing and unheady nectar.  The grilled steak and the fried potatoes could not have been better done at the Buckingham Palace kitchens.  Never for three weeks had food tasted like this.  All had been dust and ashes in his mouth since the row began.

Then with appetite satisfied and digestion beginning, he smoked.

“If you’ve anything in the shape of a really good threepenny cigar, I can do with it.  But don’t fob me off with any poor trash.  For I’ve my pipe in my pocket.”