s. If Captain Fyffe likes
to come down with me to Blackwall I can show him something. On my side
I'm all ready, and when I know where the goods are to be landed I'll
undertake to fulfil my part of the contract. I'll leave you to yours.
Money down on delivery is the only terms. I want to know the money's
there, and you want to know the goods are there. The name of the Count
Ro-Say-No would be a sufficient guarantee for anybody in the world but a
cuss like me. I'm business. In matters of business, gentlemen,
delicacy and consideration for high-flown feelings don't enter into
my composition, not for a cent's worth. If I was trading with Queen
Victoria I should want to know where the money was coming from. Forty
thousand sterling is a lot of money, and I expect you, as a man of the
world, to excuse my curiosity."

The count rose from his seat and rang the bell by the fireplace. A
servant answered it, and he said, simply:

"Ask Miss Rossano to be kind enough to see me here."

The servant retired, and Mr. Quorn filled in the time of waiting by
walking about the room with his hands under his coat-tails, making a
cursory inspection of the furniture and the engravings on the walls, and
walking from time to time to the fireplace to expectorate. When Violet
entered, the count placed a seat for her, but she remained standing,
with an interrogative look from Mr. Quorn to me which seemed to ask an
explanation of that gentleman's presence.

"My dear," said the count, "we have often spoken together of the
necessity for the purchase of arms for The Cause."

"Yes," she said.

"This gentleman," the count indicated our visitor, "has arms to sell. We
have had news this morning which makes it necessary that we should move
at once."

Her face turned pale for a moment and her lips trembled, but she spoke
an affirmatory word only, and waited.

"Mr. Quorn," said the count, "has fifty thousand stand of arms to
dispose of."

"I suppose this is all right," interrupted Mr. Quorn, "but I may be
allowed to say that I have been in a business of this sort more than
once in my time, and I never knew any good come out of the introduction
of a petticoat."

Violet looked at him, and I saw her lips twitch with an impulse towards
laughter; but Mr. Quorn obviously misunderstood the emotions he had
inspired.

"Do not suppose from that, madame," he said, with great solemnity, "that
I have not the reverence for your sex which rules every well-regul