unker.

The poor doctor looked at his friend, hesitated, and finally stammered
out, "I--I don't see why."

Mr Bunker pulled a paper out of his pocket and showed it to him.

"Perhaps this may suggest a why."

When the doctor saw the bill for Mr Beveridge's linen, the last of his
courage ebbed away. He glanced helplessly at Welsh, but his ally was now
leaning back in his chair with such an irritating assumption of
indifference, and the prospective fee had so obviously vanished, that he
was suddenly seized with the most virtuous resolutions.

"What do you want to know, sir?" he asked.

"In the first place, how did you come to have anything to do with me?"

Welsh, whose sharp wits instantly divined the weak point in the attack,
cut in quickly, "Don't tell him if he doesn't know already!"

But Twiddel's relapse to virtue was complete. "I was asked to take charge
of you while----" He hesitated.

"While I was unwell," smiled Mr Bunker. "Yes?"

"I was to travel with you."

"Ah!"

"But I--I didn't like the idea, you see; and so--in fact--Welsh suggested
that I should take him instead."

"While you locked me up in Clankwood?"

"Yes."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr Bunker, "I must say it was a devilish humorous
idea."

At this Twiddel began to take heart again.

"I am very sorry, sir, for----" he began, when the Baron interrupted
excitedly.

"Zen vat is your name, Bonker?"

"_I_ am Mr Mandell-Essington, Baron."

The Baron looked at the other two in turn with wide-open eyes.

Then he turned indignantly upon Welsh.

"You were impostor zen, sare? You gom to my house and call yourself a
gentleman, and impose upon me, and tell of your family and your estates.
You, a low--er--er--vat you say?--a low _cad!_ Bonker, I cannot sit at ze same
table viz zese persons!"

He rose as he spoke.

"One moment, Baron! Before we send these gentlemen back to their really
promising career of fraud, I want to ask one or two more questions." He
turned to Twiddel. "What were you to be paid for this?"

"L500."

Mr Bunker opened his eyes. "That's the way my money goes? From your
anxiety to recapture me, I presume you have not yet been paid?"

"No, I assure you, Mr Essington," said Twiddel, eagerly; "I give you my
word."

"I shall judge by the circumstances rather than your word, sir. It is
perhaps unnecessary to inform you that you have had your trouble for
nothing." He looked at them both as though they were curious animals,