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rather an attractive popinjay, as popinjays go. He was tall and slender and lissom, and many people considered him quite good-looking. But not Lord Tilbury. He had disapproved of his appearance from their first meeting, thinking him much too well dressed, much too carefully groomed, and much too much like what he actually was, a member in good standing of the Drones Club. The proprietor of the Mammoth Publishing Company could not have put into words his ideal of a young journalist, but it would have been something rather shaggy, preferably with spectacles, certainly not wearing spats. And while Monty Bodkin was not actually spatted at the moment, there did undoubtedly hover about him a sort of spat aura.
    'Ha!' said Lord Tilbury, sighting him.
    He stared bleakly. His demeanour now was that of a Napoleon who, suffering from toothache, sees his way to taking it out of one of his minor Marshals.
    ' Come in,' he growled.
    ' Shut the door,' he grunted.
    'And don't grin like that,' he snarled. 'What the devil are you grinning for?'
    The words were proof of the deeps of misunderstanding which yawned between the assistant editor of Tiny Tots and himself. Certainly something was splitting Monty Bodkin's face in a rather noticeable manner, but the latter could have taken his oath it was an ingratiating smile. He had intended it for an ingratiating smile, and unless something had gone extremely wrong with the works in the process of assembling it, that is what it should have come out as.
    However, being a sweet-tempered popinjay and always anxious to oblige, he switched it off. He was feeling a little puzzled. The atmosphere seemed to him to lack chumminess, and he was at a loss to account for it.
    'Nice day,' he observed tentatively. 'Never mind the day.'
    'Right ho. Heard from Uncle Gregory lately?' ' Never mind your Uncle Gregory.' 'Right ho.'
    'And don't say "Right ho."' 'Right ho,' said Monty dutifully. 'Read this.'
    Monty took the proffered copy of Tots.
    'You want me to read aloud to you?' he said, feeling that this was matt er.
    'You need not trouble. I have already seen the passage in question. Here, where I am pointing.' ' Oh, ah, yes. Uncle Woggly. Right ho.' ' Will you stop saying "Right ho"!.. .Well?' 'Eh?'
    ' You wrote that, I take it ?'
    'Oh, rather.'
    'Cor!'
    Monty was now definitely perplexed. He could conceal it from himself no longer that there was ill-will in the air. Lord Tilbury's had never been an elfin personality, but he had always been a good deal more winsome than this.
    A possible solution of his employer's emotion occurred to him.
    'You aren't worrying about it not being accurate, are you? Because that's quite all right I had it on the highest authority - from an old boy called Galahad Threepwood. Lord Emsworth's brother. You wouldn't have heard of him, of course, but he was a great lad about the metropolis at one time, and you can rely absolutely on anything he says about whisky bottles.'
    He broke off, puzzled once more. He could not understand what had caused his companion to strike the desk in that violent manner.
    ' What the devil do you mean, you wretched imbecile,' demanded Lord Tilbury, speaking a little indistinctly, for he was sucking his fist, 'by putting stuff of this sort in Tiny Tots?’
    ' You don't like it ?' said Monty groping.
    'How do you suppose the mothers who read that drivel to their children will feel?' Monty was concerned. This opened up a new line of thought.
    'Wrong tone, do you think?'
    ' Mugs... Betting. .. Whisky... You have probably lost us ten thousand subscribers.'
    'I say, that never occurred to me. Yes, by Jove, I see what you mean now. Unfortunate slip, what ? May quite easily cause alarm and despondency. Yes, yes, yes, to be sure. Oh, yes, indeed. Well, I can only say I'm sorry.'
    'You can not only say you are sorry,' said Lord Tilbury, correcting this view, 'you can go to the cashier, draw a month's salary, get to blazes out of here, and never let me see your face in the