ir ride Dora found a letter waiting
for her. She opened it, glanced quickly over the page and then said:

"Carol, how will this suit you for this evening? I think a night out
would do you good after your little shake-up this morning. Listen--

"DEAR DORA,

"Yesterday I became a happy bachelor for a fortnight. Encumbrances
gone to Folkestone. If you have nothing better to do, meet me at
the 'West End' at 7.30 this evening, and, if possible, bring Miss
Vane, as I am bringing a friend, who, after my description of
her--don't be jealous!--is quite anxious to meet her. He is good
looking and very well off, and I think she will like him.

"Hoping you will both be able to come,

"Yours ever,
"BERNARD."

"That sounds promising," said Miss Carol. "If he's that sort, and nice
as well, and has plenty of the necessary, I shouldn't mind if he took me
on as a sort of permanence. Somehow, after last night and this morning,
I've got sick of this general knocking-about. Besides, it's no class.
All right, I'll come. A bit of a kick-up will do me good, I think. That
talk with the old gentleman this morning gave me quite a number 25 hump,
though the ride has worked a good bit of it off. Now let's feed, I'm
hungry enough to dine off cold boiled block ornaments."

Mr. Bernard Falcon, the writer of the letter to Dora, was principal
partner in the somewhat incongruously named firm of solicitors, Messrs.
Falcon and Lambe, of Mansion House Chambers, E.C. The firm did all sorts
of work, provided only that it paid; the highest class under their
style, and the other sorts--the money-lending and "speculative
business"--through their own "jackals," that is to say seedy and
broken-down solicitors who had made a failure of their own business, but
had managed to keep on the Rolls and were not above doing "commission
work" for more prosperous firms.

Mr. Lambe, away from his business, was a most excellent person; a good
husband and father, a regular church-goer, and a generous supporter of
all good works in and about Denmark Hill, where he lived. He was one of
those strangely constituted men--of whom there are multitudes in the
world--who will earn money by the most questionable, if not absolutely
dishonest, methods, without a qualm of conscience, and give liberally of
that same money without recognising for a moment that what they honestly
believe they are giving to God, is a portion of the Wage