For the first half-hour of the committee meeting, Mary had thus to do battle with the skeptical presence of Ralph Denham, who threatened to have it all his own way.

Mary tried half a dozen methods of ousting him.

She raised her voice, she articulated distinctly, she looked firmly at Mr.Clacton's bald head, she began to write a note.
To her annoyance, her pencil drew a little round figure on the blotting-paper, which, she could not deny, was really a bald-headed cock-sparrow.

She looked again at Mr.Clacton; yes, he was bald, and so are cock-sparrows.

Never was a secretary tormented by so many unsuitable suggestions, and they all came, alas! with something ludicrously grotesque about them, which might, at any moment, provoke her to such flippancy as would shock her colleagues for ever.