“Well, well,” she said, brightly. “And how is Mr. Daniels today?”

Mr. Daniels, having suffered this method of address for nearly twelve years, bore up tolerably well under it, and merely replied that he was quite well.

“This is the first time you have been at one of our monthly gatherings, Mr. Bredon,” pursued the widow. “You’re supposed to make the acquaintance of the rest of the staff, you know, but I see you haven’t strayed far from your own department. Ah, well, when we’re fat and forty”-here Mrs. Johnson giggled-“we can’t expect the same attention from the gentlemen that these young things get.”

“I assure you,” said Mr. Bredon, “that nothing but an extreme awe of your authority has hitherto prevented me from forcing my impertinent attentions upon you. To tell you the truth, I’ve been misbehaving myself, and I expect you would give me a rap over the knuckles if you knew what I’d been doing.”

“Not unless you’ve been upsetting my boys,” returned Mrs. Johnson, “the young scamps! Take your eye off them a minute and they’re up to their games. Would you believe it, that little wretch they call Ginger brought a Yo-Yo to the office with him and broke the window in the boys’ room practising ‘Round the World’ in his lunch-hour. That’ll come out of young Ginger’s wages.”

“I’ll pay up when I break a window,” promised Mr. Bredon, handsomely. “I shall say: I did it with my little catapult-”

“Catapult!” cried Mrs. Johnson, “I’ve had quite enough of catapults. There was that Ginger, not a month ago-Let me catch you at it once again, I said.”

Mr. Bredon, with raised and twisted eyebrows, exhibited his toy.

“You’ve been at my desk, Mr. Bredon!”

“Indeed I have not; I shouldn’t dare,” protested the accused. “I’m far too pure-minded to burgle a lady’s desk.”

“I should hope so,” said Mr. Daniels. “Mrs. Johnson keeps all her letters from her admirers in that desk.”

“That’s quite enough of that, Mr. Daniels. But I really did think for a moment that was Ginger’s catapult, but I see now it’s a bit different.”

“Have you still got that poor child’s catapult? You are a hard-hearted woman.”

“I have to be.”

“That’s bad luck on all of us,” said Mr. Bredon. “Look here, let the kid have it back. I like that boy. He says ‘Morning, sir,’ in a tone that fills me with a pleasant conceit of myself. And I like red hair. To oblige me, Mrs. Johnson, let the child have his lethal weapon.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Johnson, yielding, “I’ll hand it over to you, Mr. Bredon, and if any more windows are broken it’s you will be responsible. Come along to me when the tea-party’s over. Now I must go and talk to that other new member.”

She bustled away, no doubt to tell Mr. Newbolt, Mr. Hamperley, Mr. Sidebotham, Miss Griggs and Mr. Woodhurst about the childish proclivities of copy-writers. The tea-party dwindled to its hour’s end, when Mr. Pym, glancing at the Greenwich-controlled electric clock-face on the wall, bustled to the door, casting vague smiles at all and sundry as he went. The chosen twenty, released from durance, surged after him into the corridor. Mrs. Johnson found Mr. Bredon’s slim form drooping deprecatingly beside her.

“Shall I come for the catapult before we both forget about it?”

“Certainly, if you like; you are in a hurry,” said Mrs. Johnson.

“It promises me a few more minutes in your company,” said Mr. Bredon.

“You are a flatterer,” said Mrs. Johnson, not altogether ill-pleased. After all, she was not very much older than Mr. Bredon, and a plump widowhood has its appeal. She led the way upstairs to the Dispatching department, took a bunch of keys from her handbag and opened a drawer.

“You’re careful with your keys, I see. Secrets in the drawer and all that, I suppose?”

“Stamp-money, that’s all,” said Mrs. Johnson, “and any odds and ends I have to confiscate. Not but what anybody might get at my keys if they wanted to, because I often leave my bag on the desk for a few moments. But we’ve got a very honest set of boys here.”

She lifted out a sheet of blotting-paper and a cash-box and began to rummage at the back of the drawer. Mr. Bredon detained her by laying his left hand on hers.

“What a pretty ring you’re wearing.”

“Do you like it? It belonged to my mother. Garnets, you know. Old-fashioned, but quaint, don’t you think?”

“A pretty ring, and it suits the hand,” said Mr. Bredon, gallantly. He held the hand pensively in his. “Allow me.” He slipped his right hand into the drawer and brought out the catapult. “This appears to be the engine of destruction-a good, strong one, from the look of it.”

“Have you cut your finger, Mr. Bredon?”

“It’s nothing; my penknife slipped and it’s opened up again. But I think it has stopped bleeding.”

Mr. Bredon unwound his handkerchief from his right hand, wrapped it carelessly round the catapult, and dropped both together into his pocket. Mrs. Johnson inspected the finger he held out to her.

“You’d better have a bit of sticking-plaster for that,” she pronounced. “Wait a moment, and I’ll get you some from the first-aid cupboard.” She took up her keys and departed. Mr. Bredon, whistling thoughtfully to himself, looked round. On a bench at the end of the room sat four messenger-boys, waiting to be sent upon any errand that might present itself. Conspicuous among them was Ginger Joe, his red head bent over the pages of the latest Sexton Blake.

“Ginger!”

“Yessir.”

The boy ran up and stood expectantly by the desk.

“When do you get off duty tonight?”

“’Bout a quarter to six, sir, when I’ve taken the letters down and cleared up here.”

“Come along then and find me in my room. I’ve got a small job for you. You need not say anything about it. Just a private matter.”

“Yessir.” Ginger grinned confidentially. A messenger to a young lady, his experience told him. Mr. Bredon waved him back to his bench as Mrs. Johnson’s footsteps approached.

The sticking-plaster was fixed in its place.

“And now,” said Mrs. Johnson, playfully, “you must run away, Mr. Bredon. I see Mr. Tallboy’s got a little spot of trouble for me, and I’ve got fifty stereos to pack and dispatch.”

“I want this got down to the printer urgently,” said Mr. Tallboy, approaching with a large envelope.

“Cedric!” cried Mrs. Johnson.

A boy ran up. Another lad, arriving from the staircase, dumped a large tray full of stereo-blocks on the desk. The interlude was over. Mrs. Johnson addressed herself briskly to the important task of seeing that the right block went to the right newspaper, and that all were safely packed in corrugated cardboard and correctly stamped.

Punctually at a quarter to six, Ginger Joe presented himself at Mr. Bredon’s door. The office was almost empty; the cleaners had begun their rounds, and the chink of pails, the slosh of soap and water and the whirr of the vacuum-cleaner resounded through the deserted corridors.

“Come in, Ginger; is this your catapult?”

“Yessir.”

“It’s a good one. Made it yourself?”

“Yessir.”

“Good shot with it?”

“Pretty fair, sir.”

“Like to have it back?”

“Yes, please, sir.”

“Well, don’t touch it for the moment. I want to see whether you’re the sort of fellow to be trusted with a catapult.”

Ginger grinned a little sheepishly.

“Why did Mrs. Johnson take it away from you?”

“We ain’t supposed to carry them sort of things in our uniform pockets, sir. Mrs. Johnson caught me a-showin’ it to the other fellows, sir, and constickated it.”

“Confiscated.”

“Confiscated it, sir.”

“I see. Had you been shooting with it in the office, Ginger?”

“No, sir.”

“H’m. You’re the bright lad who’s broken a window, aren’t you?”

“Yessir. But that wasn’t with a catapult. It was a Yo-Yo, sir.”

“Quite so. You’re sure you’ve never used a catapult in the office?”