‘That is very bad,’ said Merton, with sympathy.  ’The dinner is on Friday, you say?’ and he made a note of the date.

‘Yes, 15 Albany Grove, on the Regent’s Canal.’

‘You can think of nothing else—­no weakness to work on?’

’No, sir, just her awful temper; I would save him from it, for he has another as bad.  And besides hopes from him have kept me up so long, his only relation, and times are so hard, and schooling and boots, and everything so dear, and we so many in family.’  Tears came into the poor lady’s eyes.

‘I’ll give the case my very best attention,’ he said, shaking hands with the client.  To Merton’s horror she tried, Heaven help her, to pass a circular packet, wrapped in paper, into his hand.  He evaded it.  It was a first interview, for which no charge was made.  ’What can be done shall be done, though I confess that I do not see my way,’ and he accompanied her downstairs to the street.

‘I behaved like a cad with my chaff,’ he said to himself, ’but hang me if I see how to help her.  And I rather admire that cook.’

He went into the inner room, wakened the sleeping partner, Logan, on the sofa, and unfolded the case with every detail.  ’What can we do, que faire!’

’There’s an exhibition of modern, mediaeval, ancient, and savage cookery at Earl’s Court, the Cookeries,’ said Logan.  ’Couldn’t we seduce an artist like Miss Blowser there, I mean thither of course, the night before the dinner, and get her up into the Great Wheel and somehow stop the Wheel—­and make her too late for her duties?’

‘And how are you going to stop the Wheel?’

‘Speak to the Man at the Wheel.  Bribe the beggar.’

’Dangerous, and awfully expensive.  Then think of all the other people on the Wheel!  Logan, vous chassez de race.  The old Restalrig blood is in your veins.’

’My ancestors nearly nipped off with a king, and why can’t I carry off a cook?  Hustle her into a hansom—­’

‘Oh, bah! these are not modern methods.’

‘Il n’y a rien tel que d’enlever,’ said Logan.

‘I never shall stain the cause with police-courts,’ said Merton.  ’It would be fatal.’

’I’ve heard of a cook who fell on his sword when the fish did not come up to time.  Now a raid on the fish?  She might fall on her carving knife when they did not arrive, or leap into the flames of the kitchen fire, like OEnone, don’t you know.’

’Bosh.  Vatel was far from the sea, and he had not a fish-monger’s shop round the corner.  Be modern.’

Logan rumpled his hair, ’Can’t I get her to lunch at a restaurant and ply her with the wines of Eastern France?  No, she is Temperance personified.  Can’t we send her a forged telegram to say that her mother is dying?  Servants seem to have such lots of mothers, always inconveniently, or conveniently, moribund.’

’I won’t have forgery.  Great heavens, how obsolete you are!  Besides, that would not put her employer in a rage.’