They were upon the Embankment, rattling beneath Hungerford Bridge, when from the tangle of his plans Bill at last drew a thread; weaved it to words. “George, we mustn't tell the chief anything about your being mixed up with the other cat outrage—the Rose. It might be awkward.”
George shifted the hand that firmly held Abishag on the seat between them; squeezed that fine creature's head to him with his arm; with his handkerchief wiped his sweating palms.
“It's going to be awkward,” he said—“damned awkward! I see that. Oh, Bill!”
He groaned. This young man was in desperate agitation.
“Buck up,” Bill told him. “This is a cert. Safe as houses.”
“All very well for you, Bill. I seem to have been living one gigantic lie all the past week.”
“Well, you have, you know,” Bill granted. “By gum, you have! But you aren't now. You didn't steal this cat. You found it just as anyone else might have found it. All I tell you is: Don't say anything about the Rose. Don't open your mouth, in fact. Leave the gassing to me.”
It was upon this repeated injunction that my poor George tottered up the stairs of the Daily office, cat in arm, in Bill's wake.
II.
Bill rapped upon Mr. Bitt's door; poked in his head at the answering call; motioned my trembling George to wait; stepped over the threshold.