Sir Eustace looked at me, sighed deeply, then opened the door of the adjoining room and called to Pagett.

“If you’ve quite finished your afternoon sleep, my dear fellow, perhaps you’d do a little work for change.”

Guy Pagett appeared in the doorway. He bowed to us both, starting slightly at the sight of me, and replied in a melancholy voice:

“I have been typing that memorandum all this afternoon, Sir Eustace.”

“Well, stop typing it then. Go down to the Trade Commissioner’s Office, or the Board of Agriculture, or the Chamber of Mines, or one of these places, and ask them to lend me some kind of a woman to take to Rhodesia. She must have liquid eyes and not object to my holding her hand.”

“Yes, Sir Eustace. I will ask for a competent shorthand typist.”