This heartrending piece of intelligence touched the crowd, and Coaldust was instantly forward in proposing an informal vote of condolence, which was seconded by a bare-armed lady in a deerstalker cap. But the policeman, evidently roused by our friends' ill-judged and precipitate attempt to strike camp, suddenly produced a pocket-book from his tunic, and said--

"It is my duty to take your names and addresses, together with the name of the firm employing you."

This announcement obviously disconcerted Dicky and Robin; for it is one thing to take part in a masquerade, and another to get out of the consequences thereof by cold-drawn lying.

However, the policeman was sucking his pencil and waiting, so Dicky said--

"You can get all the information you want from the Borough Surveyor."

It was a bold effort, but the policeman merely said--

"Your name, please!"

Dicky, fairly cornered, replied--

"Er--Samuel"--I thought at first he was going to say "Inglethwaite," and was prepared to drop a flower-pot on his head if he did; but he continued, with the air of one offering a real bargain at the price--"Phillipps."

"Two P's?" inquired the constable.

"Three," said Dicky.

The policeman rolled a threatening eye upon him.

"Be careful!" he said in an awful voice.

"One of them comes at the beginning," said Dicky meekly.

"Haw, haw!" roared several people in the crowd, which was unfortunate for Dicky. He was one of those people who would risk a kingdom to raise a laugh.

"Address?" continued the policeman.

"Buck'nam Pallis!" shouted Coaldust, before any one else in the crowd could say it.

The policeman turned and directed upon him a look that would have entirely obfuscated a soberer man.

"I'll attend to you presently," he said in the exact tones which my dentist employs when he shuts me into the waiting-room. "Now then, your address? Come along!"

Dicky gave some address which I did not catch, and the representative of the law turned to Robin. The latter evidently saw rocks ahead if the inquisition was to be extended to the whole party. He said--

"Surely there is no need to take any more names."

"I'll be responsible for the lot," added Dicky eagerly--too eagerly.

"Now let's be off! Come along Di--Liza!"

He took Dilly by the arm, and, preceded by Gerald, began to press through the crowd, which by this time extended almost right across the street.

But the now thoroughly aroused guardian of the peace, determined not to be rushed like this, broke away from Robin, who was engaging him in pleasant conversation, and, hastening after the retreating group, laid a detaining and imperious hand on Dilly's arm.

What happened next I was not quick enough to see. But there was a swirl and a heave in the crowd, and presently Dicky became visible, standing in a very heroic attitude with his arm round Dilly; while the policeman, with an awe-inspiring deliberateness which implied "Now you _have_ gone and done it!" extricated himself majestically but painfully from the chasm in the road which had recently been occupying Dicky's attention, and into which Dicky in defence of his beloved had apparently pushed him.

Picking up his pocket-book and putting it back into his chest, and uttering the single and awful word "_Assault!_" the policeman produced a whistle and blew it.

Things were certainly getting serious, and I had just decided to send out the hotel porter to the policeman to tell him to bring his captives inside out of the way of the crowd, when I noticed that Robin was ploughing his way towards the outskirts of the throng, waving his arm as he went. Then I saw that his objective was another policeman--an Inspector this time. He was a gigantic creature, and Robin and he, slowly forging towards each other through the surrounding sea of faces, looked like two liners in a tideway.

Robin's conduct in deliberately attracting the notice of yet another representative of law and order appeared eccentric on the face of it, but his subsequent behaviour was more peculiar still.

He seized the newly-arrived giant by the arm, and drew him apart from the crowd, where he told him something which appeared to amuse them both considerably.

"Yewmorous dialogue," announced Coaldust to his neighbours, "between Cleopartrer's Needle and the Moniment!"

But it was more than that,--it was deep calling to deep. Presently the explanation, or the joke, or whatever it was, came to an end, and the Inspector advanced threateningly upon the crowd.

"Pass along, there, pass along!" he cried with a devastating sweep of his arm. He spoke with a Highland accent, and I realised yet once more the ubiquity of that great Mutual Benefit Society which has its headquarters north of the Tweed.

The crowd politely receded about six inches, and through them, accompanied by Robin, the Inspector clove his way to the encampment, where Dicky, who seemed to be rapidly losing his head, was delivering a sort of recitative to every one in general, accompanied by the policeman on the whistle.

What the Inspector said to his subordinate I do not know, but the net result was that in a very short time the former was escorting the entire party of excavators down the street, attended by a retinue of small boys (who were evidently determined to see if it was going to turn out a hanging matter); while the latter, to whom the clearing of the "house"

had evidently been deputed, set about that task with a vigour and ferocity which plainly indicated a well-meaning and zealous mind tingling under an entirely undeserved official snub.

They told me all about it in the smoking-room that night.

"The idea," began Dicky, "was----"

"Whose idea was it?" I inquired sternly "It was all of our idea,"

replied my future relative by marriage lucidly.

"But who worked it out?" I asked,--"the plot, the business, the 'props'?

It was a most elaborate production."

"Never you mind that, old man," said Dicky lightly. (But I saw that Robin was laboriously relighting his pipe and surrounding himself with an impenetrable cloud of smoke.) "Listen to the yarn. The idea was to stake out a claim in some fairly busy road and stay there for a given time--say, six o'clock till tea-time--and kid the passing citizens that we were duly authorised to get in the way and mess up the traffic generally. If we succeeded we were going to write to _The Times_ or some such paper and tell what we had done--anonymously, of course--just to show how necessary Champion's Bill is."

"Have you written the letter?"

"Yes."

"I wouldn't send it if I were you."

"Well, that's what Robin here has been saying."

"Putrid rot if we don't!" remarked Gerald, who had by this time washed his face, but ought to have been in bed for all that.

"We can't do it," said Robin. "For one thing, we have attracted quite enough public attention already,--it's bound to be in the papers anyhow, now, and that will probably give the Bill all the advertisement it needs,--and if we give the authorities any more clues our names may come out. For another thing, it wouldn't be fair to Hector MacPherson."

"Who is he?"

"That Inspector who came up at the critical moment. He was one of my first friends in London."