ilous pleasure. They might take it into
their heads to kill me to see whether I have got the stone."

"Take your pick," said the pawnbroker, going to the shop and returning
with two or three secondhand revolvers and some cartridges.

"I never fired one in my life," said Levi dubiously, "but I believe the
chief thing is to make a bang. Which'll make the loudest?"

On his friend's recommendation he selected a revolver of the service
pattern, and, after one or two suggestions from the pawnbroker,
expressed himself as qualified to shoot anything between a chimney-pot
and a paving-stone.

"Make your room-door fast to-night, and tomorrow let Bob have a bed
there," he said earnestly, as he rose to go. "By the way, why not make
those chalk marks on the door just for the night? You can laugh at them
to-morrow. Sort of suggestion of the Passover about it, isn't there?"

"I'm not going to mark my door for all the assassins that ever
breathed," said the Jew fiercely, as he rose to see the other out.

"Well, I think you're safe enough in the house," said Levi. "Beastly
dreary the shop looks. To a man of imagination like myself it's quite
easy to fancy that there is one of your brown friend's pet devils
crouching under the counter ready to spring."

The pawnbroker grunted and opened the door.

"Poof, fog," said Levi, as a cloud streamed in. "Bad night for pistol
practice. I shan't be able to hit anything."

The two men stood in the doorway for a minute, trying to peer through
the fog. A heavy, measured tread sounded in the alley; a huge figure
loomed up, and, to the relief of Levi, a constable halted be-fore them.

"Thick night, sir," said he to the pawnbroker.

"Very," was the reply. "Just keep your eye on my place to-night,
constable. There have been one or two suspicious-looking characters
hanging about here lately."

"I will, sir," said the constable, and moved off in company with Levi.

The pawnbroker closed the door hastily behind them and bolted it
securely. His friend's jest about the devil under the counter occurred
to him as he eyed it, and for the first time in his life, the lonely
silence of the shop became oppressive. He half thought of opening the
door again and calling them back, but by this time they were out of
earshot, and he had a very strong idea that there might be somebody
lurking in the fog outside.

"Bah!" said he aloud, "thirty thousand pounds."

He turned the gas-jet on full--a man that had