Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/185

 Duke was not unmindful of Sergeant Kelly's remarkable disinterestedness, and took a cordial leave of him, fully prepared to follow his advice in this affair of thorns.

As soon as the door had closed upon the dignified form of Sergeant Kelly, the Duke lay back in his chair fighting a storm of laughter. Cursed with a sense of humor, at all times a great handicap for such a one as himself, its expression had seldom been less opportune or more uncomfortable. For there was really nothing to laugh at in a matter of this kind. The thing was too grimly serious.

Still, for the moment, this amateur of the human comedy was the victim of a divided mind. He wanted to laugh until he ached over this solemn policeman upholding the fabric of society.

"By gad, he's right," Albert John ruminated, as he dipped gout-ridden fingers in his ravished cigar box. "Things are in a state of flux." He cut off the end of a cigar. "My own view is that this monstrous bluff which these poor fools have allowed some of us to put up since the Conquest, more or less, will mighty soon be about our ears. However,"—Albert John placed the cigar between his lips—"it hardly does to say so."

For a time this was the sum of his reflections. Then he pressed the bell at his elbow and the servant re-*appeared.

"Ask Mr. Twalmley to be good enough to telephone to Mr. Dinneford. I wish to see him at once."