"I'm very busy now, and--"
"See here, Mr. Jeffrey," said St. George, "is no one allowed there
but relatives of the guests?"
"Nobody,"--crisply.
"I beg your pardon, that is literal?"
"Relatives, with a permit," divulged the warden, who, if he had had
a sceptre would have used it at table, he was so fond of his little
power, "and the Readers' Guild."
"Ah--the Readers' Guild," said St. George. "What days, Mr. Jeffrey?"
"To-day and Saturdays, ten o'clock. I'm sorry, Mr. St. George, but
I'm a very busy man and now--"
"Good-by," St. George cried triumphantly.
In half an hour he was at the Grand Central station, boarding a
train for the Reformatory town. It was a little after ten o'clock
when he rang the bell at the house presided over by Chillingworth's
"rabble of wild eagles."
The Reformatory, a boastful, brick building set in grounds that
seemed freshly starched and ironed, had a discoloured door that
would have frowned and threatened of its own accord, even without
the printed warnings pasted to its panels stating that no
application for admission, with or without permits, would be
honoured upon any day save Thursday.
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