The Assistant Commissioner, driven rapidly in a hansom from the neighbourhood of Soho in the direction of Westminster, got out at the very centre of the Empire on which the sun never sets.

Some stalwart constables, who did not seem particularly impressed by the duty of watching the august spot, saluted him.

Penetrating through a portal by no means lofty into the precincts of the House which is _the_ House, _par excellence_ in the minds of many millions of men, he was met at last by the volatile and revolutionary Toodles.
That neat and nice young man concealed his astonishment at the early appearance of the Assistant Commissioner, whom he had been told to look out for some time about midnight.

His turning up so early he concluded to be the sign that things, whatever they were, had gone wrong.

With an extremely ready sympathy, which in nice youngsters goes often with a joyous temperament, he felt sorry for the great Presence he called "The Chief," and also for the Assistant Commissioner, whose face appeared to him more ominously wooden than ever before, and quite wonderfully long.
"What a queer, foreign-looking chap he is," he thought to himself, smiling from a distance with friendly buoyancy.