"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but a Mr. Morfey is on the telephone and
asks whether it would be convenient for you to see him to-night. He says
it's urgent." Mr. Prohack braced himself, but where his stomach had been
there was a void.


V

"Had an accident to your eye-glass?" asked Mr. Prohack, shaking hands
with Oswald Morfey, when the latter entered, by appointment, Mr.
Prohack's breakfast-room after dinner. Miss Warburton having gone home,
Mr. Prohack had determined to employ her official room for formal
interviews. With her woman's touch she had given it an air of business
which pleasantly reminded him of the Treasury.

Ozzie was not wearing an eye-glass, and the absence of the broad black
ribbon that usually ran like a cable-connection between his eye and his
supra-umbilical region produced the disturbing illusion that he had
forgotten an essential article of attire.

"Yes," Ozzie replied, opening his eyes with that mien of surprise that
was his response to all questions, even the simplest. "Miss Sissie has
cracked it."

"I'm very sorry my daughter should be so clumsy."

"It was not exactly clumsiness. I offered her the eye-glass to do what
she pleased with, and she pleased to break it."