“No.”  He gave her shoulder a final pat, and laughed noisily.  “No, it’ll set me firmer on the road to promotion than what I’ve ever been.  When I get back here again, I shall be like the monkey—­best part up the palm-tree, and nothing dangerous between him and the nuts.”

All that day Dale was busy installing the deputy.

“You find us fairly in order,” he said, with a pride that did not pretend to conceal itself.  “Nothing you wouldn’t call shipshape?”

“Apple-pie order,” said Mr. Ridgett.  “Absolutely O.K.”

Mr. Ridgett was a small sandy man of fifty, who obviously wished to make himself as agreeable as might be possible in rather difficult circumstances.  During the afternoon he listened with an air of interested attention while Dale told him at considerable length the series of events that had led up to this crisis.

“For your proper understanding,” said the postmaster, “I’ll ask you once more to cast your eye over the position of the instruments;” and he marched Mr. Ridgett from the sorting-room to the public office, and showed him the gross error that had been committed in placing the whole telegraphic apparatus right at the front, close to the window, merely screened from the public eye and the public ear by glass partition-work, instead of placing it all at the back, out of everybody’s way.  “I told them it was wrong from the first—­when they were refitting the office, at the time of the extensions.  My experience at Portsmouth had taught me the danger.”

It seemed that one evening, about three weeks ago, a certain soldier on leave had been lounging against the counter, close to the glass screen.  On the other side of the screen the apparatus was clicking merrily while Miss Yorke, the telegraph clerk, despatched a message.  And all at once the soldier, who was well versed in the code, began to recite the message aloud.  The postmaster peremptorily ordered him to stand away from the counter.  An altercation ensued, and the soldier became so impudent that the postmaster threatened to put him outside the door.  “Oh,” said the soldier, “it’d take a many such as you to put me out.”

“Did he say so?  Really now!” And Mr. Ridgett looked at Dale critically.  “I take it he was a heavyweight, eh?”

“He gave me my work,” said Dale; “and I was all three minutes at it.  But out he went.”

“Really now!” and Mr. Ridgett smiled.

“I had stopped Miss Yorke from operating.  And I started her again within four minutes.  That was the time, and no more, the message was delayed.  That was the time it took me to renew the service with the confidence and secrecy provided by Her Majesty’s Regulations.  And I ask you, how else could I have acted?  Was I to allow a telegram consigned to my care to be blabbed out word for word to all the world?”

“Were there many people in the office just then?”

“Two.  But that makes no difference.  If it had been only one—­or half a one—­it couldn’t be permitted.”