, contrary to his usual practice,
which was, as we have seen, to spend it at a certain music-hall. He
read the papers over and over again.

"I wish," he said at length, "I wish I had known this only two months
ago. I wish I had paid more attention to Iris. What a dreadful thing
it is to have a grandfather who keeps secrets from his grandson. What
a game we might have had over this job! What a game we might have
still if--"

And here he stopped, for the first germ or conception of a magnificent
coup dawned upon him, and fairly dazzled him so that his eyes saw a
bright light and nothing else.

"If Lotty would," he said. "But I am afraid she won't hear of it." He
sprung to his feet and caught sight of his own face in the looking
glass over the fireplace. He smiled. "I will try," he said, "I think
I know by this time, how to get round most of 'em. Once they get to
feel there are other women in the world besides themselves, they're
pretty easy worked. I will try."

One has only to add to the revelations already made that Joe paid a
second visit to the shop, this time early in the morning. The shutters
were only just taken down. James was going about with that remarkable
watering-pot only used in shops, which has a little stream running out
of it, and Mr. Emblem was upstairs slowly shaving and dressing in his
bedroom. He walked in, nodded to his friend the assistant, opened the
safe, and put back the roll.

"Now," he murmured, "if the old man has really been such a
dunder-headed pump as not to open the packet all these years, what the
devil can he know? The name is different; he hasn't got any clew to
the will; he hasn't got the certificate of his daughter's marriage, or
of the child's baptism--both in the real name. He hasn't got anything.
As for the girl here, Iris, having the same christian-name, that's
nothing. I suppose there is more than one woman with such a fool of a
name as that about in the world.

"Foxy," he said cheerfully, "have you found anything yet about the
investments? Odd, isn't it? Nothing in the safe at all. You can have
your key back."

He tossed him the key carelessly and went away.

The question of his grandfather's savings was grown insignificant
beside this great and splendid prize which lay waiting for him. What
could the savings be? At best a few thousands; the slowly saved thrift
of fifty years; nobody knew better than Joe himself how much his own
profligacies had cost his grandfather;