"I am going to lie in my deepest armchair and read When Anarchy came to an n, which has an encouraging picture of the Law Courts being burnt on the cover. Till seven, then."

The dinner was largely occupied, much to Reginald's boredom, by Chloe's account of what she had discovered about King Suleiman and Lord Arglay's comments on it. It seemed she had been right in her remembrance that the Majesty of the King made its journeys accompanied by the Djinn, the doctors of the law, and the viziers, upon a carpet which accommodated its size to the King's needs. But there were also tales of the Crown and the Stone in the Crown, and (more general) of the Ring by virtue of which the King understood all languages of men and beasts and Djinn and governed all created things' save only the great Archangels themselves who exist in immediate cognition of the Holy One. "For," said Chloe thrilling, "he was one of the four mighty ones-who were Nimrod and Sheddad the Son of Ad, and Suleiman and Alexander; the first two being infidels and the Second two True Believers."

"Alexander?" Arglay said in surprise. "How jolly! Perhaps Giles will produce the helmet of the divine Alexander too. We shall have a regular archaeological evening, I expect. Well, come along, Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre...... He carried them off to the car.

Sir Giles received the party with an almost Christlike, "What went ye out for to see?" air, but he made no demur about producing the Crown for their examination. The Chief Justice, after examining it, showed it to Chloe.

"And the markings?" he asked her.

Chloe said nervously, "O you know them, Lord Arglay."

"I know they are Hebrew," the Chief justice said, "and I know that Sir Giles is sneering at me in his heart. But I haven't an idea what they are."

"I suppose you've never had a Hebrew Rabbi before you?" Sir Giles said. "That's how you judges become educated men, isn't it? The letters-"

"I asked Miss Burnett, Giles," Lord Arglay interrupted, and Sir Giles with a shrug waited.

"They are the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name," Chloe said still more nervously. "Yod, He, Vau, He. I found it out this afternoon," she said suddenly to Sir Giles, "in an encyclopedia."

"Some of us write encyclopedias," Arglay said, "-that's you, Giles; some of us read them-that's you, Miss Burnett; some of us own them- that's me; and some of us despise them -that's you, Reginald."

"Encyclopedias are like slums," Giles said, "the rotten homes of diseased minds. But even Hoxton has to pretend to live, it thinks, and of course it doesn't know it stinks."

Arglay was looking at the letters. "The Divine Name," he said musingly. "Yod, He, Vau, He. Umph. Well.... We were going to experiment, weren't we?" he added, almost as if recovering himself. "Who begins? Reginald, suppose you show us."

"Certainly," Montague said. "Now look here, uncle, let's really show you. tell me something I can bring you from your study."

"Bring me the pages of manuscript on the small table by the window," Arglay answered at once. "The top one is marked Chapter IV."

Montague nodded and taking the Crown put it on his head; he settled it comfortably, then taking a step or two backwards sat down in the nearest convenient chair. Lord Arglay watched him attentively, occasionally darting his eyes sideways towards Sir Giles, who-as if bored with the repetition of a concluded experiment-had turned to the papers on which he had previously been working. Chloe suddenly caught Arglay's arm; he put up his other hand and pressed hers. At once they found themselves looking at an empty chair. Chloe cried out; Arglay took a step towards the chair. Sir Giles, looking round, said casually; "I shouldn't get in the way; he may be back at any moment, and you might get a nasty knock."

"Well, I'm damned," Lord Arglay said. "It's all—" he began, looking at Chloe, but, impressed by the vivid excitement that possessed her, ceased in the middle of the reassuring phrase he had begun.