‘It’s all right,’ said the reporter of the local paper soothingly.  ’We never report Sir Thomas in extenso.  Only the fines and charges.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Ollyett replied, and I heard him ask who every one in court might be.  The local reporter was very communicative.

The new victim, a large, flaxen-haired man in somewhat striking clothes, to which Sir Thomas, now thoroughly warmed, drew public attention, said that he had left his licence at home.  Sir Thomas asked him if he expected the police to go to his home address at Jerusalem to find it for him; and the court roared.  Nor did Sir Thomas approve of the man’s name, but insisted on calling him ‘Mr. Masquerader,’ and every time he did so, all his people shouted.  Evidently this was their established auto-da-fe.

’He didn’t summons me—­because I’m in the House, I suppose.  I think I shall have to ask a Question,’ said Pallant, reappearing at the close of the case.

‘I think I shall have to give it a little publicity too,’ said Woodhouse.  ‘We can’t have this kind of thing going on, you know.’  His face was set and quite white.  Pallant’s, on the other hand, was black, and I know that my very stomach had turned with rage.  Ollyett was dum.

‘Well, let’s have lunch,’ Woodhouse said at last.  ’Then we can get away before the show breaks up.’

We drew Ollyett from the arms of the local reporter, crossed the Market Square to the Red Lion and found Sir Thomas’s ‘Mr. Masquerader’ just sitting down to beer, beef and pickles.

‘Ah!’ said he, in a large voice.  ’Companions in misfortune.  Won’t you gentlemen join me?’

‘Delighted,’ said Woodhouse.  ‘What did you get?’

’I haven’t decided.  It might make a good turn, but—­the public aren’t educated up to it yet.  It’s beyond ’em.  If it wasn’t, that red dub on the Bench would be worth fifty a week.’

‘Where?’ said Woodhouse.  The man looked at him with unaffected surprise.

‘At any one of My places,’ he replied.  ‘But perhaps you live here?’

‘Good heavens!’ cried young Ollyett suddenly.  ’You are Masquerier, then?  I thought you were!’

‘Bat Masquerier.’  He let the words fall with the weight of an international ultimatum.  ’Yes, that’s all I am.  But you have the advantage of me, gentlemen.’

For the moment, while we were introducing ourselves, I was puzzled.  Then I recalled prismatic music-hall posters—­of enormous acreage—­that had been the unnoticed background of my visits to London for years past.  Posters of men and women, singers, jongleurs, impersonators and audacities of every draped and undraped brand, all moved on and off in London and the Provinces by Bat Masquerier—­with the long wedge-tailed flourish following the final ‘r.’

‘I knew you at once,’ said Pallant, the trained M.P., and I promptly backed the lie.  Woodhouse mumbled excuses.  Bat Masquerier was not moved for or against us any more than the frontage of one of his own palaces.