earched drawers and
desks and letter-books and safes and ice-tanks and trouser-presses--every
place in which a certificate might hide. It was no good. I went back to
Andrew. I was calm.

"About these Jaguars," I said casually. "I don't quite understand my
position. What have I promised to do? And can they put me in prison if I
don't do it?"

"You've promised to sell fifty Jaguars to a man called Stevens by the
middle of next month. That's all."

"I see," I said, and I went home again.

And I suppose you see too. I've got to sell fifty Jaguars to a man
called Stevens by the middle of next month. Although I really have fifty
fully matured ones of my own, there's nothing to prove it, and they are
so suspicious in the City that they will never take my bare word. So I
shall have to buy fifty new Jaguars for this man called Stevens--and buy
them by the middle of next month.

And this is why I am still eagerly watching the price of Jaguars.
Yesterday they were 5/8. I am hoping that by the middle of next month
they will be down to 1/2 again. But I find it difficult to remember
sometimes which way I want them to go. This afternoon, for instance,
when I saw they had risen to 11/16 I was quite excited for a moment; I
went out and bought some cigars on the strength of it. Then I
remembered; and I came home and almost decided to sell the pianola. It
is very confusing. You must see how very confusing it is.

THE DOUBLE

I was having lunch in one of those places where you stand and eat
sandwiches until you are tired, and then try to count up how many you
have had. As the charm of these sandwiches is that they all taste
exactly alike, it is difficult to recall each individual as it went
down; one feels, too, after the last sandwich, that one's mind would
more willingly dwell upon other matters. Personally I detest the whole
business--the place, the sandwiches, the method of scoring--but it is
convenient and quick, and I cannot keep away. On this afternoon I was
giving the _foie gras_ plate a turn. I know a man who will never touch
_foie gras_ because of the cruelty involved in the preparation of it. I
excuse myself on the ground that my own sufferings in eating these
sandwiches are much greater than those of any goose in providing them.

There was a grey-haired man in the corner who kept looking at me. I
seemed to myself to be behaving with sufficient propriety, and there was
nothing in my clothes or appearance to inv