got to know each other
if we're going to do business together. You must know, my dear ladies,
that every proposition I've handled I've gone into it as much for the
fun as for the coin." He cocked his head; plainly there was an element
of conceit in his character. "Well, fair ones--ready?"

Mrs. De Peyster nodded.

"Ever heard of the American Historical Society's collection of
recently discovered letters of a gentleman named Thomas Jefferson?"

Mrs. De Peyster started.

"Yes."

"And perhaps you have heard that authorities now agree that said
Thomas Jefferson was dead almost a hundred years when said letters
were penned; and that he must have been favored with the assistance of
an amanuensis of, so to say, the present generation?"

"Yes."

"That being the case you may have heard of one Thomas Preston, alleged
to be said amanuensis?"

"Yes."

He put his hand across his clerical vest, and bowed first to Mrs. De
Peyster, then to Matilda.

"It gives Mr. Preston very great pleasure to meet you, ladies. Only
for the present he humbly petitions to be known as Mr. Pyecroft."

Mrs. De Peyster was quite unable to speak. So this was the man Judge
Harvey was trying to hunt down! Her meeting him like this, it seemed
an impossible coincidence--utterly impossible! She little dreamed that
the laws of chance were not at all concerned in this adventure; that
this meeting was but the natural outcome of Matilda's trifling act in
picking up from the library rug a boarding-house card and slipping it
into her slit-pocket.

The young man, for he now obviously was a young man, plainly delighted
in the surprise he had created.

"I like to hand it to these pompous old stiffs," he went on
gleefully--"these old boys who will come across with sky-high prices
for old first editions and original manuscripts, and who don't care
one little wheeze of a damn for what the author actually wrote. I'm
sorry, though,"--in a tone of genuine contrition,--"that Judge Harvey
was the man finally to be stung; they say he's the real thing."
Suddenly his mood changed; his eye dropped in its unreverend wink.
"There's a Raphael that the Metropolitan is solemnly proud of. It cost
Morgan a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It cost me an even five
hundred to have it made."

He laughed again: that gay, whimsical, irresponsible laugh. Mrs. De
Peyster was recovering somewhat from her first surprise.

Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward. "But this isn't getting do