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128 are grades of the V.C., and those grades are appreciated to a nicety by the recipient's brother officers if not by the general public. The show would fit Toby like a glove…Then there was Ted Jerningham, who combined the rôles of an amateur actor of more than average merit with an ability to hit anything at any range with every conceivable type of firearm. And Jerry Seymour in the Flying Corps…Not a bad thing to have a flying man—up one's sleeve…And possibly someone versed in the ways of tanks might come in handy…

The smile broadened to a grin; surely life was very good. And then the grin faded, and something suspiciously like a frown took its place. For he had arrived at the Carlton, and reality had come back to him. He seemed to see the almost headless body of a man lying in a Belfast slum…

"Mr. Potts will see no one, sir," remarked the man to whom he addressed his question. "You are about the twentieth gentleman who has been here already to-day."

Hugh had expected this, and smiled genially.

"Precisely, my stout fellow," he remarked, "but I'll lay a small amount of money that they were newspaper men. Now, I'm not. And I think that if you will have this note delivered to Mr. Potts, he will see me."

He sat down at a table, and drew a sheet of paper towards him. Two facts were certain: first, that the man upstairs was not the real Potts; second, that he was one of Peterson's gang. The difficulty was to know exactly how to word the note. There might be