Titherington had a room, temporarily set apart for his use as an office, in the house of the Conservative and Unionist Parliamentary Association. Here he was at liberty to spread about on a large table all the papers he carried in his despatch box and many others. The profusion was most impressive, and would, I am sure, have struck a chill into the soul of Vittie had he seen it. Here were composed and written the letters which I afterward signed, wonderful letters, which like the witches in Macbeth “paltered in a double sense.” Here Titherington entered into agreements with bill printers and poster artists, for my election was to be conducted on the best possible system with all the modern improvements, an object lesson to the rest of Ireland. Here also the interview with Lalage took place. The room was a great convenience to us. Our proper headquarters were, of course, in Ballygore, the principal town in the East Connor division of Down. But a great deal of business had to be done in Dublin and we could hardly have got on without an office.

I walked into this room a few minutes before eleven on the morning after I had entertained Titherington in my hotel.

“The lady hasn’t arrived yet,” I said.

“She’s gone,” said Titherington. “She was here at half-past eight o’clock.”

I noticed that Titherington spoke in a subdued way and that his eyes had a furtive expression I had never seen in them before. I felt encouraged to give expression to the annoyance which I felt. I told Titherington plainly that I thought he ought not to have changed the hour of the interview without telling me. It seemed to me that he had played me a mean trick and I resented it. Greatly to my surprise Titherington apologized meekly.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said, “and I hadn’t time to communicate with you. I only got this at twenty minutes past eight and had no more than time to get here myself.”

He handed me a telegram.

“Eleven quite impossible. Say 8.30. Jun. Soph. Ord. begins at 9.30. Lalage Beresford.”

“I was just sitting down to breakfast,” said Titherington, “and I had to get up without swallowing so much as a cup of tea and hop on to a car. She’s a tremendously prompt young woman.”

“She is,” I said, “and always was.”

“You know her then?”

“I’ve known her slightly since she was quite a little girl.”

“Why didn’t you tell me so last night?”

“I tried to,” I said, “but you kept on interrupting me, so I gave up.”

Titherington’s conscience may have pricked him. He was certainly in a chastened mood, but he showed no sign of wishing to make any further apologies. On the contrary he began to recover something of his habitual self-assertiveness.

“If you know her,” he said, “perhaps you can tell me what a Jun. Soph. Ord. is?”

“No, I can’t. She was always, even as a child, fond of using contractions. I remember her writing to me about a ‘comp.’ and she habitually used ‘hols’ and ‘rec.’ for holidays and recreation.”

“It sounds to me,” said Titherington, “like a police court.”

“You don’t mean to say that you think she’s been arrested for anything?”

“I hope so.”

“Why?” I asked. “Was she too much for you this morning?”

Titherington ignored the second question.

“I hope so,” he said, “because if she’s the sort of girl who gets arrested, she’ll be most useful to us. She was quite on for annoying Vittie. She says she’s been looking up his speeches and that he’s one of the worst liars she ever came across. She’s quite right there.”

“I wish,” I said, “that you’d go and bail her out. Her father’s a clergyman and it will be a horrible thing if there’s any public scandal.”

“I hinted at that as delicately as I could. I didn’t actually mention bail, because I wasn’t quite sure that a Jun. Soph. Ord. mightn’t be something in the Probate and Divorce Court. She simply laughed at me and said she didn’t want any help. She told me that she and Hilda, whoever Hilda is, are sure to be all right, because the Puffin is always a lamb—I suppose the Puffin is some name they have for the magistrate—but that a Miss Harrison would probably be stuck.”

“She can’t have said Miss Harrison.”

“No. She said Selly, or Selby-Harrison, short for Selina I thought.”

“As a matter of fact, Selby-Harrison—it’s a hyphenated surname—is a man.”

“Oh, is it?” said Titherington, using the neuter pronoun because, I suppose, he was still uncertain about Selby-Harrison’s sex.

“I wish,” I said, “that I knew exactly what they’ve done.”

“It doesn’t in the least matter to us. So long as she’s the kind of young woman who does something we shall be satisfied.”

“Oh, she’s that.”

“So I saw. And she’s an uncommonly good-looking girl. The crowd will be all on her side when she starts breaking up Vittie’s meetings.”

“You accepted her offer of help then?”

“Certainly,” said Titherington. “She’s to speak at a meeting of yours on the twenty-first.”

Titherington was by this time talking with all his usual buoyant confidence, but I still caught the furtive look in his eyes which I had noticed at first. He seemed to me to have something to conceal, to be challenging criticism and to be preparing to defend himself. Now a man who is on the defensive and who wants to conceal something has generally acted in a way of which he is ashamed. I felt encouraged.

“You didn’t commit me in any way, I hope,” I said.

“Certainly not. I didn’t have to. She was as keen as nuts on helping us and didn’t ask a single question about your views on the suffrage question. I needn’t say I didn’t introduce the subject.”

“You didn’t sign anything, I suppose?”

Titherington became visibly embarrassed. He hesitated.

“I rather expected you’d have to,” I said.

“It wasn’t anything of the slightest importance.”

“Selby-Harrison drew it up, I expect.”

“So she said. But it didn’t matter in the least. If it had been anything that tied us down I shouldn’t have signed it.”

“You would,” I said. “Whatever it was you’d have signed it.”

“She rather rushed me. She’s a most remarkable young woman. However that’s all the better for us. If she’s capable of rushing me,” Titherington’s chest swelled again as he spoke, “she’ll simply make hay of Vittie. It would be worth going to hear her heckling that beast on votes for women. Believe me, he won’t like it.”

“She had you at a disadvantage,” I said. “You hadn’t breakfasted.”

Titherington became suddenly thoughtful.

“I wish I knew more about ordinary law,” he said. “I’m all right on Corrupt Practices and that kind of thing, but I don’t know the phraseology outside of electioneering. Do you think a Jun. Soph. Ord. can be any process in a libel action?”

“It might be. Why do you ask?”

“Well, the paper I signed was a sort of agreement to indemnify them in case of proceedings for libel. I signed because I didn’t think a girl like that would be likely to say anything which Vittie would regard as a libel. He’s a thick-skinned hound.”

“She once libelled twenty-three bishops, she and Hilda and Selby-Harrison between them.”

“After all,” said Titherington, “you can say pretty near anything you like at an election. Nobody minds. I think we’re pretty safe. I’ll see that anything she says at our meetings is kept out of the papers, and she won’t get the chance of making regular speeches at Vittie’s.”

I felt quite sorry for Titherington. The interview with Lalage had evidently been even more drastic than I expected.

“Perhaps,” I said soothingly, “they’ll give her six weeks for the Jun. Soph. Ord., whatever it is, and then the whole election will be over before she gets out.”

“We can’t allow that,” said Titherington. “It would be a downright scandal to subject a girl like that—why, she’s quite young and—and actually beautiful.”

“We must hope that the Puffin may prove, as she expects, to be a disguised lamb.”

“I wish I knew who he is. I might get at him.”

“It’s too late to do anything now,” I said, “but I’ll try and find out in the course of the morning. If I can’t, we’ll get it all in the evening papers. They’re sure to report a case of the sort pretty fully.”

I left Titherington and walked across toward the club. I met the Archdeacon in St. Stephen’s Green. I might, and under ordinary circumstances I should, have slipped past him without stopping, for I do not think he saw me. But I was anxious about Lalage and I thought it likely that he would have some news of her. I hailed him and shook hands warmly.

“Up for a holiday?” I asked.

“No,” said the Archdeacon. “I have eight meetings to attend to-day.”

“I mustn’t keep you then. How is everybody at home? Canon Beresford and Lalage quite well?”

“I saw Lalage Beresford this morning. I was passing through college on my way to one of my meetings and I saw her standing outside the big hall. She’s in her first junior sophister examination to-day.”

“Ord?” I said.

“What?”

“Ord?” I repeated. “You said Jun. Soph., didn’t you?”

“I said junior sophister.”

“Quite so, and it would be Ord., wouldn’t it?”

“It’s an ordinary, if that’s what you mean.”

“An ordinary,” I said, “is, I suppose, an examination of a commonplace kind.”

“It’s one that you must get through, not an honour examination.”

“I’m so glad I met you. You’ve relieved my mind immensely. I was afraid it might be an indictable offence. Without your help I should never have guessed!”

The Archdeacon looked at me suspiciously.

“I hope she’ll pass,” he said, “but I’m rather doubtful.”

“Oh, she’ll pass all right, she and Hilda. Selby-Harrison may possibly be stuck.”

“She’s very weak in astronomy.”

“Still,” I said, “the Puffin is a perfect lamb. I think we may count on that.”

The Archdeacon eyed me even more suspiciously than before. I could see that he thought I had been drinking heavily.

“Titherington told me that about the Puffin,” I said. “He wanted to bail her out. He’ll be just as glad as I am when he hears the truth.”

The Archdeacon held out his hand stiffly. I do not blame him in the least for wanting to get away from me. A church dignitary has to consider appearances, and it does not do to stand talking to an intoxicated man in a public street, especially early in the day.

“I think we may take it for granted,” I said, “that the Puffin is the man who sets the paper in astronomy.”

The Archdeacon left me abruptly, without shaking hands. I lit a cigarette and thought with pleasure of the careful and sympathetic way in which he would break the sad news of my failing to Lord Thormanby. When I reached the club I despatched four telegrams. The first was to Titherington.

“No further cause for anxiety. Jun. Soph. Ord. not a crime but a college examination. The Puffin probably the Astronomer Royal, but some uncertainty prevails on this point. Shall see lady this afternoon and complete arrangements.”

I knew that the last sentence would annoy Titherington. I put it in for that purpose. Titherington had wantonly annoyed me.

My other three telegrams were all to Lalage. I addressed one to the rooms of the Elizabethan Society, one to 175 Trinity College, which was, I recollected, the alternative address of the Anti-Tommy Rot Gazette, and one to Trinity Hall, where Lalage resided. In this way I hoped to make sure of catching her. I invited her, Hilda, and Selby-Harrison to take tea with me at five o’clock in my hotel. I supposed that by that time the Jun. Soph. Ord. would have run its course. I wished to emphasize the fact that I wanted Lalage to bring Selby-Harrison, whom I had never seen. I underlined his name; but the hall porter to whom I gave the telegram told me that the post-office regulations do not allow the underlining of words. If Titherington succeeds in making me a Member of Parliament, I shall ask the Postmaster-General some nasty questions on this point. It seems to me a vexatious limitation of the rights of the public.