for the happenings on him. They were going to protest when they became aware that Vincent could handle the situation perfectly well without their assistance. He listened without interruption to what Harmington had to say, and seemed to give the matter careful consideration before he replied.

"It's not really a police job," he stated finally, "but if you would like me to lend a hand I'll see what can be done."

"I don't want you to see what can be done," Harmington snapped. "I want you to do something, and do it promptly."

"I'm afraid I don't see much chance of that," Vincent replied patiently.

Harmington was on to the answer as though he had at last found the opportunity for which he had been waiting.

"Are you unable," he asked smoothly, "to undertake the duties which I require of the police in this District, or are you unwilling to do so?”

"At the moment," Vincent told him, "I am both. You had a copy of that confidential letter which arrived by last mail, so you know that headquarters have fixed a pretty definite programme which will occupy every man I have available for several weeks to come. If, however, you think this matter is very urgent and that you must have police assistance in it, you might let me have the request in writing, and I'll find out what headquarters say to it. If I turned any men

on to your job before that, I should certainly catch it in the neck."

So, to the infinite joy of Lathom and Wharton, Harmington resorted to ponderous sarcasm.

"An eventuality," he declared, "which must be avoided at all costs. I must apologise for not having appreciated the excessive industry of the police. I will not trouble you further in the matter. But be careful, Vincent; don't overwork yourself."

That night at the club, when Lathom and Wharton gave a detailed account of the incident, handsome odds were offered against Davies' theory that any real trouble would come from Harmington's dislike of Vincent. The dry weather had come; life promised less discomfort; tempers would improve. It was generally held, Davies and Mrs Lathom dissenting, that Vincent was perfectly capable of holding his own; and, when he came into the club and played a riotous game of cork pool, most people declared that he was obviously out of danger.

But Harmington again changed his tactics. After the two traders had witnessed his defeat when he attempted to badger Vincent officially, he gave up that form of annoyance. He left the police officer alone and turned his attention to the man. Then he scored triumphantly, with, according to most people, unexpected ease. Vincent, of course, may have imagined himself secure directly the official badgering ceased. But the trouble more probably was that nobody, except Harmington, not even Vincent himself, really appreciated how much his resistance during the weary months of the rains had taken out of the boy. Anyhow, when everything looked like plain sailing, just on the eve of his going off on tour when he would probably not meet Harmington for several weeks, he cut a most imperial voluntary.

It was at a dinner which Bruce gave; and for months afterwards he cursed himself for having been such a fool as to ask the two together. Bridge had finished, and the party was just about to break up when the talk drifted on to fox-hunting. Cruikshank, Lathom, and Harmington, who were all three very keen, began to discuss the old topic of why some people can always manage to get to the top of the hunt. Vincent, who was erroneously persuaded that he knew a great deal about all matters connected with horses, chipped into the talk with more vigour than discretion. Some of his opinions were purely fatuous, and Cruikshank and Lathom snubbed him mildly. Harmington was strangely gentle; he positively insisted on giving the boy a large share of the conversation. By judicious encouragement he got him to say some fairly idiotic things. But it was not till Vincent had announced in a loud confident

voice that being on the tail of hounds was really a very simple matter that Harmington's manner changed. He lolled back in his chair, a very perfect and immaculate person, and he deliberately affected a drawl which could not fail to draw his victim.

"Simple, is it," he commented, smiling. "Then you must be the fellow I want to meet out hunting. It's always seemed difficult to me. By the way, who do you usually hunt with at home?”

Vincent flushed at the man's tone; and he appeared confused by the question.

"Who?" he asked. "Who do I hunt with?

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it was too late.

Vincent took

tion that he should help himself to a drink; and although Harmington acknowledged Mrs Lathom's move by standing up, the smile with which he met Vincent's angry stare was not intended to allow the boy to escape from losing his temper. "It's getting horribly late" Mrs Lathom began.

But Vincent's voice, rather higher than usual and a little shaky, interrupted her.

"It's quite simple," he declared, with a pathetic attempt at sarcasm. "Don't let the jumps worry you so much."

Again Harmington's eyebrows went up slightly.

"Thank you," he answered gravely. "I must endeavour to remember that profound advice."

For a moment, while Mrs Lathom, Cruikshank, Lathom, and Bruce sought desperately for something to say, while Harmington regarded his furious victim with amused contempt, while Vincent himself went from red to white, only the noise of insects calling in the hot night outside broke a silence on the verandah. Then Vincent let himself go.

"You infernal, damned, patronising swine!" he shouted, on a note somewhere midway between a scream and a sob. "You think yourself God Almighty. You imagine that there is no one here fit to lick your stinking boots. You call yourself a gentleman, I call you a-"

on making a complete job of it. He apparently forgot that Mrs Lathom and Mrs Cruikshank were present. He became hysterically abusive, very foulmouthed, and entirely out of hand. Then, when he had sworn himself out of breath, he turned from Harmington, who watched the display with the expression of a man who had always anticipated some such thing, and gaped at the embarrassed faces of the others. It appeared to take him a second or two to realise the situation, for he stood with his mouth open, white, clammy, staring. Then without a word to anybody he bolted from the verandah, down the steps into a twilight of star-shine.

Harmington's pious hope that they would be able to keep the unfortunate incident to themselves was not disputed; but when he had gone comment was more free. It was agreed that Vincent had made a considerable fool of himself; but it was the possible effects on his future of his having done so which were most seriously considered. It was generally accepted that now it was odds on trouble.

When Vincent went off on tour two days later without having been near the club or having seen the two ladies before whom he had loosed an uncensored vocabulary, both the Cruikshanks and the Lathoms took the matter seriously. "I asked him to dinner," "Unhealthy business brooding on things in the jungle," Cruikshank commented.

"Wants a robust sense of humour," Lathom agreed, "to see the funny side of having made a first-class fool of yourself, especially when you are

alone."

"They are square now," Mrs Lathom declared. "Each of them has done it once. But I'm afraid Mr Harmington won't be content with that. He's got a safe draw now, and he'll make use of it."

Which was the plain truth; but it is only fair to Harmington to state that Vincent appeared intent to meet him more, a good deal more, than half-way in the business.

The boy was out in the jungle for a month or so, during which time he was not seen by any white people. He did not return to Sin Byu until a few days after the Christmas and New Year celebrations, although it was obvious that he could have returned for them had he wished to do so. That in itself aroused comment, which seemed fully justified when he first appeared in the club after more than four weeks' absence. He was unmistakably self-conscious, a weakness which he had not exhibited before. The way in which he watched people when he was talking to them to see how they were taking him was an entirely new departure in a man who had been in the

not

reckoning the effect of his words afterwards. Also he would insist on introducing Harmington, who was present on the occasion, into his conversation. As he moved from one group to another, exchanging greetings and hearing gossip, he seemed desperately determined to drag in the fellow's name. He referred to him with laboured facetiousness, calling him variously, "Our one and only Mr Harmington," "Our unsurpassable D.C.," "Our tailor's joy," " Our perfect gentleman," and the like; but he would refer to him. Even those people, including Davies, who had heard no more than vague rumours about the scene at Bruce's dinner party, recognised, that first night of his return, that whatever the cause might be Vincent was now in a weak position to defend himself.

Naturally Harmington recognised his advantage directly the two men met again, and he took steps to ensure that it should not be lessened. He contrived one way and another to make certain that Vincent should not escape from the station and the certainty of frequent meetings with himself. If the boy got away into the jungle for a day or two, Harmington would see to it that, on some excuse or other, he was recalled; and Vincent, probably on account of his eagerness to convince people that he did not fear the man, seemed no longer capable of carrying out his own work in his own way and of refusing to tolerate unjustified interference.

Whenever the two met, socially and officially, which in the nature of the situation they were bound to do almost daily, Harmington exhibited an amazing ingenuity in exposing the worst side of his victim. It was a disgusting performance, but it was highly skilled. When they met officially, and Vincent, as became increasingly common, had to explain or excuse mistakes into which he had blundered, Harmington would listen to him with smiling toleration, talk kindly about youth and inexperience, then, when he had succeeded in goading the boy into some stupid outburst that was mere impertinence, would pass over the incident with elaborate magnanimity. Socially he achieved even more marked results. His means were various, and he used them all with equal success. It became next door to a mathematical certainty that Vincent would immediately respond to the touch of Harmington's polished goad. Sometimes Harmington would amuse himself by introducing Greek and Latin quotations into ordinary conversation and asking for Vincent's opinion of their aptness; and Vincent, who with any one else would have declared that he had ended a reluctant acquaintance with the classics, and had happily forgotten all about them, would become stupidly embarrassed

because he had to confess ignorance of the meaning of the words. Sometimes Harmington would appeal to Vincent to corroborate details about places to which he could be fairly certain his victim had never been, the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, certain houses and clubs in London, that sort of thing. Instead of replying that he knew nothing of the places referred to and letting it go at that, Vincent would show unmistakably that he thought he ought to know them, and was fallen from social grace because he did not. But Harmington's surest method and the one he used most commonly was to draw the boy into argument on no matter what topic, and then, by skilled dialectics and judicious patronage, induce him to display both ignorance and temper. Since Harmington was not only highly educated but quite a subtle and brilliant thinker, the result of this pleasing pastime was inevitable. Vincent became more and more angry, confused, and excited as his words were twisted and turned and thrown back at him as arguments against himself, until at last, convinced of the impossibility of making headway against the verbal subtleties of the man with whom he wrangled, he took refuge in crude denials, stupid personalities, and the display, at which Harmington had aimed, of an honest but slightly hairy heel.

In an ordinary community, of course, the rotten business would not have gone on. Vin