Richard Frencham Altar had a sense of humour but never before in his hitherto easy going life had he so earnestly needed it. A sense of humour in a queer abstract way provides a quality of companionship—it gives a man the power to be a pal to himself—to talk to himself aloud—to laugh at adversity—to spot the comic side in the most pathetic predicament. Each day provided something new in the matter of discomfort or alarm. The calls he was obliged to make upon his resources of humour were therefore severe and exacting. Over and over again he had need to remind himself that there was something classically funny in three financial giants demanding from him information of which he was entirely ignorant and, technically speaking, putting him on the rack in order to obtain it. The fun was grim but it existed. No one ever thought of mentioning what it was they wanted to find out—doubtless assuming that to do so was waste of time. For his own satisfaction Richard would dearly have loved to ask point blank what it was all about, but to indulge curiosity to that extent would be to imperil the safety of the cause he represented.

To keep a record of days he made a scratch on the wall paper each morning with his finger nail. There were seventeen scratches in all and he was as proud of them as an old campaigner of his medals for they stood for seventeen successful engagements. Whoever it was had charge of arranging his persecution lacked nothing in the way of imagination. Methods of destroying his repose and a course of rigorous fasting were prominent features but these were varied with details of a terrifying and sometimes abominable kind. On one occasion thirty or forty rats were introduced into his apartment where they fought and squeaked and scurried all night long. But Richard's experiences in France had robbed him of any particular fear of rats. If anything he welcomed their appearance and devoted the short periods when the light was on to shooting at them with a catapult fashioned from the elastic of a sock suspender and a piece of angle iron detached from the underside of a broken armchair. For ammunition he used a few bits of anthracite coal which he found in the sitting room grate. Altogether he accounted for seventeen before the servants arrived and deprived him of his weapon. The remainder of the rats were corralled and carried away rejoicing. This little entertainment took place during the first week of his imprisonment and served the unhappy purpose of convincing his captors that Richard's nerves were not susceptible to frivolous attacks. Thereafter they concentrated on sterner measures. Food was reduced to a minimum and frequently doped with chemicals that caused him acute internal suffering. When the pain was at its height either Van Diest, Laurence or Hipps would pay him a visit and over and over again the question would be asked.

Times out of number sheer desperation and want of sleep almost induced him to give away the secret but something inside his nature—some fourth dimensional endurance over which he appeared to have the most astounding control—checked the impulse. Often he wondered at himself and questioned how he contrived to face the pressure put upon him, but the only motive he could trace beyond the stalwart desire of every decent man to take his gruel without squealing was an ambition to be able to meet Auriole Craven's eyes squarely when she came to see him and say "I'm afraid your friends haven't got my strength just yet." She would shake her head at that and reply cynically—"It's only a matter of time, Anthony." But at the back of her eyes was a light that seemed to read "Well done you."

He was in a sad enough plight on the morning of the seventeenth day when the door opened and Van Diest followed by Laurence entered the room.

Van Diest was chanting a German hymn, a habit greatly affected by him in moments of perplexity. With thumbs tucked in his waistcoat and fingers drumming upon the resonant rotundity of his waist line he marched slowly up and down moaning the guttural words in a melancholy and tuneless voice. Richard had learned to hate that song as cordially as its performer.

"Take it down another street," he implored.

Van Diest stopped singing long enough to shake his head and Laurence who had seated himself with crossed legs on one of the hard upright chairs said "Barraclough" with a note of pseudo-friendly warning.

"Why not have a shot at 'Avalon,'" Richard suggested sleepily. "Suit you, that would, and make a nice change for me." His throat was burning and talking was painful.

"Hm! A change," said Van Diest. "I wass thinking you would want a change very soon. It is tired you look this morning."

"That's queer, for I had a splendid night." Richard's hollow, dark rimmed eyes gave a lie to his words.

"Hm! Laurence, they use the siren—yes?"

Laurence nodded.

"Had it going every ten minutes. Didn't give him much of a chance last night."

"So! But to these young boys sleep comes very easily—I think—think it wass a goot idea to take away his bed—yes."

Richard rolled his eyes threateningly toward the speaker and checked a sudden torrent of abuse that sprang to his lips.

"It iss bad for these boys to have too much comforts—s'very bad; with the sleep fogged brain a man loses so much the intelligence. You will arrange—yes?"

"Of course I will if he insists," said Laurence.

"Oh, you swine," said Richard staggering to his feet. "You rotten blasted swine. Aren't you satisfied with what you've done—isn't it enough that you make the nights into a hell for me—a screaming hell. Sleep? How can I sleep? How can I sleep when——"

A violent, paroxysm of coughing seized and shook him this way and that.

"Tut, tut, tut! You haf a very bad cold there," said Tan Diest sweetly. "You must eat one of these lozenges."

Richard struck the box out of the hand that proffered it and fell heaped up into a chair beside the table.

"No pleasure to us you stay awake, eh, Laurence, eh?"

"'Course not. Now don't look at me like that, old fellar, I was thundering decent to you when first you arrived. Barring smoke, literature and alcohol it was a home from home. It's your own pigeon things have got a bit tight. Doesn't pay striking out against the odds."

"You little rat," said Richard turning a bit in his chair. "I'd like——" and he closed his fist.

"Silly talk, old chap, waste of time."

"I could waste a lot of time that way."

Laurence humped his shoulders.

"What are you to do with a fellar like this?"

Van Diest drew up a chair and smiled over the rims of his glasses.

"Of course we let you go to sleep if you waas sensible. Consider now the small shareholders that look to us for their little incomes. All these widows from the war. You speak and you wass a rich man all at once. Very soon forget the discomforts of these three weeks. S'no goot—no goot to make a fuss."

"I have nothing to say."

"Ach!" said Van Diest and rose. "I'm afraid, Laurence, we must take away this bed."

But Richard raised no further protest and somewhere below stairs a gong rumbled for lunch. It was part of the programme to emphasise the arrival of meals and in spite of himself he could not resist starting hungrily. Such signs and tokens were watched for. Laurence laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered:

"There's a fourth place laid, old friend."

"Why not join us to the lunch," said Van Diest coaxingly, "just a word spoken and—oh, it's goot the lunch."

"Thanks, but I'm rather particular who I sit with," said Richard and moved unsteadily toward the fireplace.

"It's rather a special menu," Laurence remarked. "There's a lobster Americaine—that was in Hipps' honour. But perhaps you don't care for shellfish, Barraclough."

"No, no, thank you. Prefer a Spartan diet. Glass of water and a piece of bread."

"Bread? Yes. I hope the baker remembered to call. Be awkward if——
Well, come along, Chief, no good letting things get cold."

They passed out of the room and the bolt slammed home.

With a crazy impulse Richard staggered across the floor, seized the door handle and shook it violently. One of those violent paroxysms of hunger suddenly possessed him which while they endure are acute agony. The longing for food gripped at his vitals like an eagle's claw and drove reasoned action from his head. He knew well enough that there was no escape to be made through the shuttered windows but ignoring the knowledge he leapt toward them and seized the iron cross-bar. As he lifted it from its slot the alarm bell above the frame rang out a fiery summons.

He fell back a pace beating the air impotently and whining. The door opened and Blayney and Parker, the two men servants, entered. Parker placed a tray on the table, then returned to stand in the open doorway. Blayney, ignoring Richard's presence, replaced the shutter bar in its old position and the bell stopped ringing. Then he turned and said:

"I shouldn't advise you, to try the window, sir. There's a strong electric current passes through the catch."

"Thank you," said Richard and slouched despondently toward the table where his glance fell upon the tray. Whatever victuals had been provided were concealed beneath a small silver cover but there was a napkin, a knife and fork and a cruet. On the whole it looked rather promising. Then suddenly he noticed that the glass beside the plate contained barely an inch of water.

"I say," he exclaimed, "look! Can't I have a jog of water? There isn't——"

"Not today, sir," said Blayney.

The very courtesy of the man was an incentive to fury.

"Yes, but——"

"Not today, sir."

Parker in the doorway grinned.

"Don't smirk at me, blast you," said Richard.

Blayney nodded toward the bedroom and changed places with his companion. When Parker came out he was carrying a great pile of bedclothes.

"Here, what are you doing? Put 'em down. D'you hear me?"

"My orders were to take them away, sir."

As Laurence had said it was useless to fight against present odds.
Richard shut his teeth tight.

"Obey your orders," he said, but as the door was closing the craving for drink mastered his pride. "For God's sake," he cried, "for God's sake give me some more water. I'll give you twenty for a jug of water—honest I will—twenty——"

Blayney laid a finger to his lips and went out. The gesture might have meant anything. With trembling hand Richard seized the glass of water and drained it at a gulp. There was miserably little—it barely cooled the heat of his throat. Whimpering he set the glass down and lifted the cover from the plate. Underneath was a cube of bread the size of a lump of sugar. With a savage cry he picked it up and flung it across the room but a moment later was on all fours gathering up the broken bits and pieces and eating them wolfishly.

Blayney found him searching pathetically for the last crumb when he came stealthily into the room and put a tin mug on the table.

"I'll collect that twenty later," he said and vanished.

Almost like a miser Richard took the mug in his hands and purred over it possessively. With a sigh of absolute content he raised it to his lips. Then a scream broke from him—harsh, strident, savage. There were no soft spots in the walls of Hugo Van Diest's fortress. The water was salt.