me moment Mr Moss was announced.

Mr Moss was a radiant Hebrew, brutally handsome, and offensively polite.
He was acting, it appeared, for a third party; he understood nothing of
the circumstances; his client desired to have his position regularized;
but he would accept an antedated cheque--antedated by two months, if Mr
Finsbury chose.

'But I don't understand this,' said Morris. 'What made you pay cent. per
cent. for it today?'

Mr Moss had no idea; only his orders.

'The whole thing is thoroughly irregular,' said Morris. 'It is not the
custom of the trade to settle at this time of the year. What are your
instructions if I refuse?'

'I am to see Mr Joseph Finsbury, the head of the firm,' said Mr Moss.
'I was directed to insist on that; it was implied you had no status
here--the expressions are not mine.'

'You cannot see Mr Joseph; he is unwell,' said Morris.

'In that case I was to place the matter in the hands of a lawyer. Let
me see,' said Mr Moss, opening a pocket-book with, perhaps, suspicious
care, at the right place--'Yes--of Mr Michael Finsbury. A relation,
perhaps? In that case, I presume, the matter will be pleasantly
arranged.'

To pass into the hands of Michael was too much for Morris. He struck his
colours. A cheque at two months was nothing, after all. In two months
he would probably be dead, or in a gaol at any rate. He bade the manager
give Mr Moss a chair and the paper. 'I'm going over to get a cheque
signed by Mr Finsbury,' said he, 'who is lying ill at John Street.'

A cab there and a cab back; here were inroads on his wretched capital!
He counted the cost; when he was done with Mr Moss he would be left with
twelvepence-halfpenny in the world. What was even worse, he had now been
forced to bring his uncle up to Bloomsbury. 'No use for poor Johnny
in Hampshire now,' he reflected. 'And how the farce is to be kept up
completely passes me. At Browndean it was just possible; in Bloomsbury
it seems beyond human ingenuity--though I suppose it's what Michael
does. But then he has accomplices--that Scotsman and the whole gang. Ah,
if I had accomplices!'

Necessity is the mother of the arts. Under a spur so immediate, Morris
surprised himself by the neatness and dispatch of his new forgery, and
within three-fourths of an hour had handed it to Mr Moss.

'That is very satisfactory,' observed that gentleman, rising. 'I was to
tell you it will not be presented, but you had better take care.'

The r