I took up the box, rattled the cube within it for a long time and then dropped it flat upon the table.
I had thrown Queen.
CHAPTER TWO
About a fortnight after the memorable scene in my flat when the league came into being, I was sitting in my editorial room at the offices of the Evening Special.
I had met Juanita once at a large dinner party and exchanged half a dozen words with her—that was all. My head was full of plans, I was trying to map out a social campaign that would give me the opportunity I longed for, but as yet everything was tentative and incomplete. The exciting business of journalism, the keeping of one's thumb upon the public pulse, the directing of public thought into this or that channel, was most welcome at a time like this, and I threw myself into it with avidity.
I had just returned from lunch, and the first editions of the paper were successfully afloat, when Williams, my acting editor, and Miss Dewsbury, my private secretary, came into my room.
"Things are very quiet indeed," said Williams.
"But the circulation is all right?"
"Never better. Still, I am thinking of our reputation, Sir Thomas."