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 CHAPTER VIII

ORD ROXTON had returned from Central African heavy game shooting, and had at once carried out a series of Alpine ascents which had satis¬ fied and surprised everyone except himself.

“ Top of the Alps is becomin’ a perfect bear¬ garden,” said he. “ Short of Everest there don’t seem to be any decent privacy left.”

His advent into London was acclaimed by a dinner given in his honour at the Travellers’ by the Heavy Game Society. The occasion was private and there were no reporters, but Lord Roxton’s speech was fixed verbatim in the minds of all his audience and has been imperishably preserved. He writhed for twenty minutes under the flowery and eulogistic periods of the president, and rose himself in the state of con¬ fused indignation which the Briton feels when he is publicly approved. “ Oh, I say ! By Jove ! What !” was his oration, after which he resumed his seat and perspired profusely.

Malone was first aware of Lord Roxton’s return through McArdle, the crabbed old red-headed news editor, whose bald dome projected further and further from its ruddy fringe as the years still found him slaving at the most grinding of tasks. He retained his keen scent of what was good copy, and it was this sense of his which caused him one winter morning to 131