"Never you mind that, old man," said Dicky lightly. (But I saw that Robin was laboriously relighting his pipe and surrounding himself with an impenetrable cloud of smoke.) "Listen to the yarn. The idea was to stake out a claim in some fairly busy road and stay there for a given time—say, six o'clock till tea-time—and kid the passing citizens that we were duly authorised to get in the way and mess up the traffic generally. If we succeeded we were going to write to The Times or some such paper and tell what we had done—anonymously, of course—just to show how necessary Champion's Bill is."
"Have you written the letter?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't send it if I were you."
"Well, that's what Robin here has been saying."
"Putrid rot if we don't!" remarked Gerald, who had by this time washed his face, but ought to have been in bed for all that.
"We can't do it," said Robin. "For one thing, we have attracted quite enough public attention already,—it's bound to be in the papers anyhow, now, and that will probably give the Bill all the advertisement it needs,—and if we give the authorities any more clues our names may come out. For another thing, it wouldn't be fair to Hector MacPherson."
"Who is he?"
"That Inspector who came up at the critical moment. He was one of my first friends in London."
"I remember. Go on."