No, I am.... 0 never mind ... Yes.... Certainly.... As much as you like. . . . Lunch then." He put the receiver back. "It's an extraordinary thing," he went on to Chloe Burnett, as she lifted her hands again to the typewriter, "that Reginald won't realize how careful I have to be of what my money is in. It's a wonder I have any private income at all. As it is, whenever I give a decision in a financial case I expect to be left comparatively penniless in a month or two."

"Does Mr. Montague want you to invest?" Miss Burnett asked.

"He wants me to give him five hundred, so far as I can understand," Lord Arglay said, "to put in the best thing that ever was. What is the best thing that ever was?"

Miss Burnett looked at her typewriter and offered no opinion.

"I suppose that I ought to think the Twelve Tables were," the Chief Justice went on, "officially - or the Code Napoléon - but they're rather specialist. And anyhow when you say 'that ever was,' do you mean that it's stopped being? Or can it still be?. . . Miss Burnett," he added after a pause, "I was asking you a question."

"I don't know, Lord Arglay," Chloe said patiently. "I never can answer that sort of question. I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'was.' But oughtn't we to get on with the rest of the chapter before lunch?"

Lord Arglay sighed and looked at his notes. "I suppose so, but I'd much rather talk. Was there ever a best thing that ever was? Never mind; you're right as usual. Where were we? The judgement of Lord Mansfield-" He began dictating.

There was, in fact, time for an hour's work before Mr. Montague arrived for lunch. Chloe Burnett had been engaged six months before by Lord Arglay as general intellectual factotum when he had determined to begin work on his Survey of Organic Law. When the Chief justice was at the Courts she spent her time reducing to typed order whatever material Lord Arglay left ready for her the night before. But during the vacation, since he had remained in town, it had become a habit for them to lunch together, and neither Chloe's intention of withdrawing or Mr. Montague's obvious uneasiness caused Lord Arglay to break it.

"Of course you'll lunch here," he said to Chloe, and to Mr. Montague's private explanations that the matter in hand was very secret, "That's all right; two can spoil a secret but three make a conspiracy, which is much safer."

"And now," he said to his nephew after they were settled, "what is it? What do you want me to put my money in this time? I shan't, of course, but what's it all about?"

"Well, it's a kind of transport," Reginald said. "It came to me through Uncle Giles, who wanted me to help him in an experiment."

"Was it a dangerous experiment?" Lord Arglay asked.

"No I don't think dangerous," Montague answered.