MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 45:

nip of frost and the early ghost of a sun somewhere
above. Mr. Smeeth was very fond of Saturday; he liked
the morning in the office (he always had a pipe at about
half-past eleven, unless he was very busy), and he liked
the afternoon out of the office. It was difficult for him
to forget that his wife had quarrelled with him, but he
hardened his heart and did his best to forget. Unfortun-
ately—as he knew only too well, for he had said it often
enough—it never rains but it pours. This treacherous
Saturday was destined to give him a series of shocks, of
varying degrees of severity.

The first, and slightest, of these shocks arrived when
he walked over to his desk, rubbing his hands as usual
and exchanging a remark or two with everybody. His
inkwells had not been filled up, and no fresh blotting-
paper had been put on his desk,

"Hello!" he cried, looking round. "Where's Stanley?"

"Hasn't turned up/' replied Turgis.

"Well, well, well, well," said Mr. Smeeth fussily.
"Does anybody know what's happened to him? Is he
ill or something?"

Nobody knew. Miss Sellers thought he had probably
caught a cold, because she was sure she had heard him
sneeze several times while he was copying the letters the
night before. Turgis said with gloomy satisfaction that
he had probably been knocked down and run over while
trying to shadow somebody on his way to the office.

"I don't suppose for a minute he has/' said Mr-
Smeeth sharply. "But you needn't seem so pleased
about it, Turgis. Not a nice way of saying a thing like
that at all I don't like to hear anybody talking like that
in this office. Don't know what has come over you lately,
Turgis." And it was true. He hadn't liked the way