“We’ve heard from Dr. Forster, sir,” said Dikon Bell. He glanced anxiously at his employer. When Gaunt stood with his hands rammed down in the pockets of his dressing gown and his shoulders hunched up to his ears one watched one’s step. Gaunt turned away from the window, and Dikon noticed apprehensively that his leg was very stiff this morning.

“Ha!” said Gaunt.

“He makes a suggestion.”

“I won’t go to that sulphurous resort.”

“Rotorua, sir?”

“Is that what it’s called?”

“He realizes you want somewhere quiet, sir. He’s made inquiries about another place. It’s in the Northland. On the west coast. Subtropical climate.”

“Sulphurous pneumonia?”

“Well, sir, we do want to clear up that leg, don’t we?”

“We do.” With one of those swift changes of demeanor by which he so easily commanded devotion, Gaunt turned to his secretary and clapped him on the shoulder. “I think you’re as homesick as I am, Dikon. Isn’t that true? You’re a New Zealander, of course, but wouldn’t you ten thousand times rather be there? In London? Isn’t it exactly as if someone you loved was ill and you couldn’t get to them?”

“A little like that, certainly,” said Dikon dryly.

“I shouldn’t keep you here. Go back, my dear chap. I’ll find somebody in New Zealand,” said Gaunt with a certain melancholy relish.

“Are you giving me the sack, sir?”

“If only they can patch me up…”

“But they will, sir. Dr. Forster said the leg ought to respond very quickly to hydrotherapy,” said Dikon with a prime imitation of the doctor’s manner. “They simply hated the sight of me in the Australian recruiting offices. And I fancy I should have little more than refuse-value at Home. I’m as blind as a bat, you know. Of course, there’s office work.”