So that Ministers squirmed uneasily under the razor-edge of his gibes; and the Whips, foregathering in the lobby, grew pettish at the mention of his name. A party man, he never fell into the error of wounding the susceptibilities of his own keaders; if he criticised them at all, he merely repeated, in tones of finality, the half-confessions of fallacies they had already made.

When a Government fell, Mr. Haben, deserting a safe seat, fought West Monrouth County, turned out the sitting member and returned to Westminster in triumph.

The new Government made him an Under-Secretary, first of Agriculture, then of Foreign Affairs. He had married the widow of Cornelius Beit, an American lady, fifteen years his senior–a clever woman with a violent temper and a complete knowledge of men. Their home life, though it was lived at Carlton House Terrace, was not happy. She knew him rather too well; his own temper was none of the sweetest. He had all the arrogance of a self-made man who had completed the process just a little too young. She once told a near friend that Nickerson had a streak of commonness which she found it difficult to endure, and there was even talk of a divorce.

That was just before her operation for appendicitis. The best surgeon in England performed; her recovery was never in doubt. Nickerson, under the spell of her recovery, went down to the House and delivered the best speech of his life on the subject of Baluchistan.

Three days later she was dead–there had occurred one of those curious relapses which are so inexplicable to the layman, so dreaded by the medical profession. Haben was like a man stunned. Those who hated him–many–wondered what he would do now, with the principal source of income departed. They had time for no further than a brief speculation, the matter being decided when the will was read, leaving him everything–except for a legacy to a maid.

This tragedy occurred between excellencies, an opportunity seized upon by a sympathetic chief. Nickerson Haben went out on the first African mail-boat, to combine business with recreation; to find flaws and forgetfulness.

Lieutenant Tibbetts, of the King’s Houssas, was the newsman of headquarters. The lank legs of this thin, monocled lad had brought many tidings of joy and calamity, mostly exaggerated.

Now he came flying across the lemon sands of the beach, a mail-bag in his hand, his helmet at the back of his head, surprising truth in his mouth.

He took the five steps of the stoep in one stride, dashed into the big, cool dining-room where Hamilton sat at breakfast, and dropped the bag into his superior’s lap at the precise moment when Captain Hamilton’s coffee-cup was delicately poised.

“Bones! You long-legged beach-hound!” snarled Hamilton, fishing for his handkerchief to mop the hot Mocha from his white duck trousers.

“He’s coming. Ham!” gasped Bones. “Saw my letter, dear old sir, packed his jolly old grip, took the first train!…”

Hamilton looked up sharply for symptoms of sunstroke.

“Who is coming, you left-handed oaf?” he asked, between wrath and curiosity.

“Haben, old sir…Under-Secretary, dear old Ham!” Bones was a little incoherent. “Saw my letter in the jolly old Star…he’s at Administration now! This means a C.B. for me. Ham, old boy; but I’m not goin’ to take anything unless they give old Ham the same–“

Hamilton pointed sternly to a chair.

“Sit down and finish your hysteria. Who has been stuffing you with this yarn?”

It was the second officer of the Bassam, he who had brought ashore the mails. Haben was already at Administrative Headquarters, having travelled on the same ship. For the moment Hamilton forgot his coffee-stained ducks.

“This is darned awkward,” he said, troubled. “With Sanders up-country…what is he like, this Haben man?”

Bones, for his own purpose, desired to give a flattering account of the visitor; he felt that a man who could respond so instantly to a newspaper invitation appearing over his name must have some good in him. He had asked same question of the second officer, and the second officer, with all a seaman’s bluntness, had answered in two words, one of which was Rabelaisian and the other unprintable. For Mr. Haben did not shine in the eyes of his social inferiors. Servants hated him; his private secretaries came and went monthly. A horsey member of the Upper House summed him up when he said that “Haben can’t carry corn.”

“Not so bad,” said Bones mendaciously.

Early the next morning Sergeant Ahmet Mahmed brought a grey pigeon to Hamilton, and the captain of Houssas wrote a message on a cigarette paper:

Haben, Foreign Office tourist, en route. He is at A.H.Q. raising hell. Think you had better come back and deal with him.

Hamilton had gone out in a surf-boat to interview the captain, and the character of Mr.