"Your Holiness will excuse me——"
"Yes?"
"—but have You ever contemplated the present situation?"
"No. Why?"
"Well, Your Holiness seems to have everything cut and dried."
The Pope laughed. "You shall know that George Arthur Rose has had plenty of time for thinking and scheming. His schemes never came to anything, except once; and he certainly never schemed for this. But you understand perhaps that the last twenty years have rendered Hadrian conscious both of His abilities and His limitations, as well as of His requirements; and hence He is able at a glance to describe in detail what He wants. When He wants something, without knowing what He wants, He asks questions. For example, what is that hinged arrangement under Cardinal Courtleigh's ring?"
"A master-key, Holiness; I have just got one too." The bishop shewed his own ring.
"What is that?"
"I have several places which I have to keep locked, safes, cupboards, and that sort of thing; and the keys, which are all different, have to be entrusted to my various chaplains, and so on. Well, each of these can only open the lock of the thing which concerns him: but, with that master-key, I can unlock everything and no one else in the world can do that."