"Take that off, please," she commanded.

"I beg your pardon?… Ah, to be sure!" I had forgotten my false nose.

"How did Herbert pick up with you?" she asked musingly. "His friends are not usually so—so—"

"Respectable?" I suggested.

"I think I meant to say 'presentable.' They are never respectable by any chance."

"Then, happily, it still remains to be proved that I am one of them."

"He seems, at any rate, to reckon you high amongst them, since he gave your name."

"Gave my name? To whom?"

"Oh, I don't know—to the magistrate—or the policeman—or whoever it is. I have never been in a police-cell myself," she added, with a small smile.

"Is Herbert, then, in a police-cell?"