Lord Ellerdine shook his head. "We will have some tea," he said. "But I don't want to go west now until I have talked this idea of mine over with you. If you agree that there is anything in it, then we should only have to come back to this part of the world again. Can't we get a cup of tea somewhere about here?"
By this time the two men had walked outside the Law Courts and were standing among the motley crowd which was pouring out of the great central doorway and also the side approaches to the public galleries and courts.
They looked around them. Both of them were absolutely at sea in this part of London.
"Tell you what," Ellerdine said suddenly: "I have got another idea. Let's go to an A.B.C.—what?"
"What do you mean?" Adams replied.
"Why," Lord Ellerdine answered, "the A.B.C. you know, where clerks and people have tea. There are always lots of them in every street, I believe."
They turned eastwards and began to walk slowly down Fleet Street.
"Ellerdine," Colonel Adams exclaimed bitterly, "look at this!"
The pavements were lined with news-venders displaying great contents bills of the evening papers:
"Mrs. Admaston on the Rack"; "Society Lady's Admissions"; and in a violently Radical sheet, "Society Butterfly Examined."