I began desultorily to descend to the smoking-room. In the Cimmerian gloom of the stairway the voice of a pursuer hailed me.
"I say, Granger! I say, Granger!"
I looked back. The man was one of the rats of the lower journalism, large-boned, rubicund, asthmatic; a mass of flesh that might, to the advantage of his country and himself, have served as a cavalry trooper. He puffed stertorously down towards me.
"I say, I say," his breath came rattling and wheezing. "What's up at the Hour?"
"I'm sure I don't know," I answered curtly.
"They said you took it yesterday. You've been playing the very devil, haven't you? But I suppose it was not off your own bat?"
"Oh, I never play off my own bat," I answered.
"Of course I don't want to intrude," he said again. In the gloom I was beginning to discern the workings of the tortured apoplectic face. "But, I say, what's de Mersch's little game?"
"You'd better ask him," I answered. It was incredibly hateful, this satyr's mask in the dim light.
[300]
