stant a pile
of gold and silver rattled down upon the cloth, the coins whirling and
clinking among the dishes. One rolled off the table and was retrieved by
the maid from some distant corner.

"What is it, Mary? A half sovereign? Put it in your pocket. What did the
lot come to, Hetty?"

"Thirty-one pound eight."

"You see, Munro! One day's work." He plunged his hand into his trouser
pocket and brought out a pile of sovereigns, which he balanced in his
palm. "Look at that, laddie. Rather different from my Avonmouth form,
eh? What?"

"It will be good news for them," I suggested.

He was scowling at me in an instant with all his old ferocity. You
cannot imagine a more savage-looking creature than Cullingworth is when
his temper goes wrong. He gets a perfectly fiendish expression in his
light blue eyes, and all his hair bristles up like a striking cobra. He
isn't a beauty at his best, but at his worst he's really phenomenal. At
the first danger signal his wife had ordered the maid from the room.

"What rot you do talk, Munro!" he cried. "Do you suppose I am going to
cripple myself for years by letting those debts hang on to me?"

"I understood that you had promised," said I. "Still, of course, it is
no business of mine."

"I should hope not," he cried. "A tradesman stands to win or to lose.
He allows a margin for bad debts. I would have paid it if I could. I
couldn't, and so I wiped the slate clean. No one in his senses would
dream of spending all the money that I make in Bradfield upon the
tradesmen of Avonmouth."

"Suppose they come down upon you?"

"Well, we'll see about that when they do. Meanwhile I am paying ready
money for every mortal thing that comes up the door steps. They think so
well of me here that I could have had the whole place furnished like a
palace from the drain pipes to the flagstaff, only I determined to take
each room in turn when I was ready for it. There's nearly four hundred
pounds under this one ceiling."

There came a tap at the door, and in walked a boy in buttons.

"If you please, sir, Mr. Duncan wishes to see you."

"Give my compliments to Mr. Duncan, and tell him he may go to the
devil!"

"My dear Jimmy!" cried Mrs. Cullingworth.

"Tell him I am at dinner; and if all the kings in Europe were waiting in
the hall with their crowns in their hands I wouldn't cross that door mat
to see them."

The boy vanished, but was back in an instant.

"Please, sir, he won't go."

"