"No—yes," said Professor Higginson.
"Just like your telephone," sneered Babcock. "You don't know. Well, I 'll tell you. Leonard Barclay 's the private secretary of Mrs. Camp, and he 's the man who started the Connoisseurs in Bond Street, and who wrote the book about Colombo. Now do you understand? "
Professor Higginson dared not say he didn't. But he still looked helpless.
"Good God, man!" Babcock went at him again, "he 's in the very middle of it. I 've known invitations from the R.C. sent by lots of people, but never by him!"
"Oh!" said Higginson, with an appearance of comprehension, though in truth the mysteries of our plutocracy were for him mysteries indeed. "Is he in Parliament?"
"Parliament!" sneered Babcock. "You 'll be asking me if he 's the Lord Mayor next. He 's Leonard Barclay. … Oh, curse it! He 's it! He 's in the middle of the pudding. Why, man alive, he made" (and Babcock with glorious indiscretion quoted right off the reel) "the Under-Secretary for the Post Office, the General in command of the 5th
