Ali opened the door. The lower half of him was blue and silver, the upper half was Oxford shirt and braces, for he had been engaged in cleaning the silver.

"What the deuce do you mean by it?" demanded Bones wrathfully.

"Haven't I given you a good uniform, you blithering jacka.s.s? What the deuce do you mean by opening the door, in front of people, too, dressed like a--a--dashed naughty boy?"

"Silverous forks require lubrication for evening repast," said Ali reproachfully.

Bones stalked on to his study.

It was a lovely study, with a carpet of beautiful blue. It was a study of which a man might be proud. The hangings were of silk, and the suite was also of silk, and also of blue silk. He sat down at his Louis XVI. table, took a virgin pad, and began to write. The inspiration was upon him, and he worked at top speed.

"I saw a litle bird--a litle bird--a litle bird, floating in the sky,"

he wrote. "Ever so high! Its pretty song came down, down to me, and it sounded like your voice the other afternoon at tea, at tea. And in its flite I remembered the night when you came home to me."

He paused at the last, because Marguerite Whitland had never come home to him, certainly not at night. The proprieties had to be observed, and he changed the last few lines to: "I remember the day when you came away to Margate on the sea, on the sea."

He had not seen his book of poems for a week, but there was a blank page at the end into which the last, and possibly the greatest, might go. He pulled the drawer open. It was empty. There was no mistaking the fact that that had been the drawer in which the poems had reposed, because Bones had a very excellent memory.

He rang the bell and Ali came, his Oxford shirt and braces imperfectly hidden under a jersey which had seen better days.

"Ali"--and this time Bones spoke rapidly and in Coast Arabic--"in this drawer was a beautiful book in which I had written many things."

Ali nodded.

"Master, that I know, for you are a great poet, and I speak your praises whenever I go into the _cafe_, for Hafiz did not write more beautifully than you."

"What the dooce," spluttered Bones in English, "do you mean by telling people about me--eh, you scoundrel? What the dooce do you mean by it, you naughty old ebony?"

"Master," said All "eulogistic speechification creates admiration in common minds."

He was so unruffled, so complacent, that Bones, could only look at him in wonder. There was, too, about Ali Mahomet a queer look of guilty satisfaction, as of one who had been surprised in a good act.

"Master," he said, "it is true that, contrary to modest desires of humble poets, I have offered praises of your literature to unauthorised persons, sojourning in high-cla.s.s _cafe_ 'King's Arms,' for my evening refreshment. Also desiring to create pleasant pleasure and surprise, your servant from his own emoluments authorised preparation of said poems in real print work."

Bones gasped.

"You were going to get my things printed? Oh, you ... oh, you...."

Ali was by no means distressed.

"To-morrow there shall come to you a beautiful book for the master's surprise and joyousness. I myself will settle account satisfactorily from emoluments accrued."

Bones could only sit down and helplessly wag his head. Presently he grew calmer. It was a kindly thought, after all. Sooner or later those poems of his must be offered to the appreciation of a larger audience. He saw blind Fate working through his servitor's act. The matter had been taken out of his hands now.

"What made you do it, you silly old josser?" he asked.

"Master, one gentleman friend suggested or proffered advice, himself being engaged in printery, possessing machines----"

A horrible thought came into Bones's head.

"What was his name?" he asked.

Ali fumbled in the capacious depths of his trousers pocket and produced a soiled card, which he handed to Bones. Bones read with a groan:

MESSRS. SEEPIDGE & SOOMES, Printers to the Trade.

Bones fell back in the padded depths of his writing chair.

"Now, you've done it," he said hollowly, and threw the card back again.

It fell behind Ali, and he turned his back on Bones and stooped to pick up the card. It was a target which, in Bones's then agitated condition, he could scarcely be expected to resist.

Bones spent a sleepless night, and was at the office early. By the first post came the blow he had expected--a bulky envelope bearing on the flap the sign-manual of Messrs. Seepidge & Soomes. The letter which accompanied the proof enclosed merely repeated the offer to sell the business for fifteen thousand pounds.

"This will include," the letter went on, "a great number of uncompleted orders, one of which is for a very charming series of poems which are now in our possession, and a proof-sheet of which we beg to enclose."

Bones read the poems and they somehow didn't look as well in print as they had in ma.n.u.script. And, horror of horrors--he went white at the thought--they were unmistakably disrespectful to Miss Marguerite Whitland! They were love poems. They declared Bones's pa.s.sion in language which was unmistakable. They told of her hair which was beyond compare, of her eyes which rivalled the skies, and of her lips like scarlet strips. Bones bowed his head in his hands, and was in this att.i.tude when the door opened, and Miss Whitland, who had had a perfect night and looked so lovely that her poems became pallid and nauseating caricatures, stepped quietly into the room.

"Aren't you well, Mr. Tibbetts?" she said.

"Oh, quite well," said Bones valiantly. "Very tra-la-la, dear old thing, dear old typewriter, I mean."

"Is that correspondence for me?"

She held out her hand, and Bones hastily thrust Messrs. Seepidge & Soomes's letter, with its enclosure, into his pocket.

"No, no, yes, yes," he said incoherently. "Certainly why not this is a letter dear old thing about a patent medicine I have just taken I am not all I was a few years ago old age is creeping on me and all that sort of stuff shut the door as you go in."

He said this without a comma or a full-stop. He said it so wildly that she was really alarmed.

Hamilton arrived a little later, and to him Bones made full confession.

"Let's see the poems," said Hamilton seriously.

"You won't laugh?" said Bones.

"Don't be an a.s.s. Of course I won't laugh, unless they're supposed to be comic," said Hamilton. And, to do him justice, he did not so much as twitch a lip, though Bones watched his face jealously.

So imperturbable was Hamilton's expression that Bones had courage to demand with a certain smugness:

"Well, old man, not so bad? Of course, they don't come up to Kipling, but I can't say that I'm fearfully keen on Kipling, old thing. That little one about the sunset, I think, is rather a gem."

"I think you're rather a gem," said Hamilton, handing back the proofs.

"Bones, you've behaved abominably, writing poetry of that kind and leaving it about. You're going to make this girl the laughing-stock of London."

"Laughing-stock?" snorted the annoyed Bones. "What the d.i.c.kens do you mean, old thing? I told you there are no comic poems. They're all like that."