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father’s secretary, and I hate him worse than I hate snails, and worms, and slugs, and spiders with hairs down their legs.”
    â€œWhy do you hate him? It’s frightfully silly to hate people.”
    â€œPinko isn’t people; he’s Aunt Lena’s nephew and his outside name is Paul Inglesby Craddock. And I call him Pinko because he hates it, and because his face is pink, and because he told my father about my pictures and they took them away. Yes, they did.”
    Barbara turned very white over the last words; her voice dropped to a low unchildlike tone. Then suddenly she flung herself on Mally again.
    â€œPromise me, promise me, promise me that you’ll hate him, too!”

CHAPTER V
    Sir George’s dinner engagement was one which quite a number of people would have envied him. He was a member of the small dinner club which called itself The Wolves.
    No one talked politics at The Wolves’ dinners, and no one talked business; yet it was said that the complexion of more than one political problem had been changed, and the financial status of more than one undertaking determined as the result of these informal gatherings.
    The chief guest this evening was neither politician nor man of business, but Sir Julian Le Mesurier, head of the Criminal Investigation Department. The romantic name sat oddly enough upon a man who was universally known as Piggy. The aptness of the nickname stared one in the face; Sir Julian bore the strongest possible resemblance to a very large, clean, healthy and intelligent pig. The fact that he was married to one of the most charming women in the world, and that she adored him, is a proof that women are not always swayed by outward appearance.
    A good many years ago he and Sir George had been at school together. There had survived one of those odd intimacies which is not a friendship, though it uses the outward forms of friendship.
    When dinner was over, Sir George found himself beside his guest. He clapped him on the arm with a ribald “Well, Piggy, and how’s crime?”
    Piggy crinkled up the corners of his eyes.
    â€œWe shan’t get into mischief from having idle hands.”
    â€œBusy—eh?”
    â€œFair to middling.”
    â€œThat was a pretty good coup you made over the forged French notes last year. Mopped up the whole gang, didn’t you?”
    â€œOh, that?” Piggy waved a large white hand. “My dear man, you might just as well talk about the Cardinal’s Necklace or the Gunpowder plot. Mr. Bronson and the late Guy Fawkes are both upon the shelf. In fact, it’s a case of ‘Each day brings its petty crimes, our busy hands to fill,’—and I owe Matthew Arnold an apology for that.” Sir Julian was very comfortable in a large armchair. He spoke in a lazy, drawling voice.
    Sir George laughed. He had an extremely pleasant laugh.
    â€œIf you’ve nothing but petty crimes, you’re in clover, I suppose. You don’t burn the midnight oil over erring haberdasher’s assistants or defaulting clerks, I imagine.”
    â€œNo,” said Sir Julian. “No. By the way——” He paused, his small eyes almost closed, his voice vague and dreamy. “Er—what was I saying?”
    â€œWell, first you said ‘No,’ and then you said ‘By the way.’”
    â€œEr—yes—uncommon good dinner you gave us——” He paused again. “Now what the deuce was I going to say? Must have been going to say something. Yes, dates—it was something to do with dessert. Pineapple—no, not pineapple, though I congratulate you on it. You know, as a rule, Peterson, I hold to the heretical opinion that the pineapple out of a one-and-fourpenny tin is immensely superior to the inordinately expensive variety which one encounters at banquets. Now your pineapple, Peterson, was fully the equal of the chap in the tin. But it wasn’t pineapple—I’m