and the door of an inner room between the fireplace and our observant sparrow.  Against the right hand wall is a filing cabinet, with a cupboard on it, and, nearer, a tall office desk and stool for one person.  In the middle of the room a large double writing table is set across, with a chair at each end for the two partners.  It is a room which no woman would tolerate, smelling of tobacco, and much in need of repapering, repainting, and recarpeting; but this is the effect of bachelor untidiness and indifference, not want of means; for nothing that Doyle and Broadbent themselves have purchased is cheap; nor is anything they want lacking.  On the walls hang a large map of South America, a pictorial advertisement of a steamship company, an impressive portrait of Gladstone, and several caricatures of Mr Balfour as a rabbit and Mr Chamberlain as a fox by Francis Carruthers Gould.

At twenty minutes to five o’clock on a summer afternoon in 1904, the room is empty.  Presently the outer door is opened, and a valet comes in laden with a large Gladstone bag, and a strap of rugs.  He carries them into the inner room.  He is a respectable valet, old enough to have lost all alacrity, and acquired an air of putting up patiently with a great deal of trouble and indifferent health.  The luggage belongs to Broadbent, who enters after the valet.  He pulls off his overcoat and hangs it with his hat on the stand.  Then he comes to the writing table and looks through the letters which are waiting for him.  He is a robust, full-blooded, energetic man in the prime of life, sometimes eager and credulous, sometimes shrewd and roguish, sometimes portentously solemn, sometimes jolly and impetuous, always buoyant and irresistible, mostly likeable, and enormously absurd in his most earnest moments.  He bursts open his letters with his thumb, and glances through them, flinging the envelopes about the floor with reckless untidiness whilst he talks to the valet.

Broadbent [calling] Hodson.

Hodson [in the bedroom] Yes sir.

Broadbent.  Don’t unpack.  Just take out the things I’ve worn; and put in clean things.

Hodson [appearing at the bedroom door] Yes sir. [He turns to go back into the bedroom.

Broadbent.  And look here! [Hodson turns again].  Do you remember where I put my revolver?

Hodson.  Revolver, sir?  Yes sir.  Mr Doyle uses it as a paper-weight, sir, when he’s drawing.

Broadbent.  Well, I want it packed.  There’s a packet of cartridges somewhere, I think.  Find it and pack it as well.

Hodson.  Yes sir.

Broadbent.  By the way, pack your own traps too.  I shall take you with me this time.

Hodson [hesitant].  Is it a dangerous part you’re going to, sir?  Should I be expected to carry a revolver, sir?

Broadbent.  Perhaps it might be as well.  I’m going to Ireland.