ell," said the financier softly, "what can I do for you?"

"I want some zinc," said Leo Abergavenny.

"Zinc," said Mr. Mountenay, with a smile, "is a million pounds a ton. Or
an acre, or a gallon, or however you prefer to buy it," he added
humorously.

Leo went white.

"You wish to ruin me?"

"I do. A promise I made to your wife some years ago."

"My wife?" cried Leo. "What do you mean? I'm not married."

It was Mr. Mountenay's turn to go white. He went it.

"Not married? But Miss Sloan----"

Mr. Leo Abergavenny sat down and mopped his face.

"I don't know what you mean," he said. "I asked Miss Sloan to marry me,
and told her I was changing my name to Abergavenny. And she said that
she was changing hers to Moses. Naturally, I thought----"

"Stop!" cried Mr. Mountenay. He sat down heavily. Something seemed to
have gone out of his life; in a moment the world was empty. He looked up
at his old rival, and forced a laugh.

"Well, well," he said; "she deceived us both. Let us drink to our lucky
escape." He rang the bell.

"And then," he said in a purring voice, "we can have a little talk about
zinc. After all, business is still business."

THE DOCTOR

His slippered feet stretched out luxuriously to the fire, Dr. Venables,
of Mudford, lay back in his arm-chair and gave himself up to the
delights of his Flor di Cabajo, No. 2, a box of which had been presented
to him by an apparently grateful patient. It had been a busy day. He had
prescribed more than half a dozen hot milk-puddings and a dozen changes
of air; he had promised a score of times to look in again to-morrow; and
the Widow Nixey had told him yet again, but at greater length than
before, her private opinion of doctors.

Sometimes Gordon Venables wondered whether it was only for this that he
had been the most notable student of his year at St. Bartholomew's. His
brilliance, indeed, had caused something of a sensation in medical
circles, and a remarkable career had been prophesied for him. It was
Venables who had broken up one Suffrage meeting after another by
throwing white mice at the women on the platform; who day after day had
paraded London dressed in the costume of a brown dog, until arrested for
biting an anti-vivisector in the leg. No wonder that all the prizes of
the profession were announced to be within his grasp, and that when he
buried himself in the little country town of Mudford he was thought to
have thrown away recklessly oppo