Can you explain to me, Polton, how it is that your rump steak is better than any other steak?
Is it that you have command of a special brand of ox ?" The little man's dry countenance wrinkled with pleasure until it was as full of lines as a ground-plan of Clapham Junction.
"Perhaps it is the special treatment it gets, sir," he replied.

"I usually bruise it in the mortar before cooking, without breaking up the fibre too much, and then I heat up the little cupel furnace to about 600 C, and put the steak in on a tripod." Thorndyke laughed outright.

"The cupel furnace, too," he exclaimed.
"Well, well, 'to what base uses'-- but I don't know that it is a base use after all.

Anyhow, Polton, open a bottle of Pommard and put a couple of ten by eight 'process' plates in your dark slides.

I am expecting two ladies here this evening with a document." "Shall you bring them upstairs, sir ?" inquired Polton, with an alarmed expression.
"I expect I shall have to," answered Thorndyke.
"Then I shall just smarten the laboratory up a bit," said Polton, who evidently appreciated the difference between the masculine and feminine view as to the proper appearance of working premises.
"And so Miss Gibson wanted to know our private views on the case ?" said Thorndyke, when his voracity had become somewhat appeased.
"Yes," I answered; and then I repeated our conversation as nearly as I could remember it.
"Your answer was very discreet and diplomatic," Thorndyke remarked, "and it was very necessary that it should be, for it is essential that we show the backs of our cards to Scotland Yard; and if to Scotland Yard, then to the whole world.