to keep them! Good God alive, man, they're all
I've got in the world!'

Torpenhow watched Dick's face and whistled.

Dick walked up and down, thinking. He saw the whole of his little stock
in trade, the first weapon of his equipment, annexed at the outset of
his campaign by an elderly gentleman whose name Dick had not caught
aright, who said that he represented a syndicate, which was a thing for
which Dick had not the least reverence. The injustice of the proceedings
did not much move him; he had seen the strong hand prevail too often in
other places to be squeamish over the moral aspects of right and wrong.

But he ardently desired the blood of the gentleman in the frockcoat,
and when he spoke again, and when he spoke again it was with a strained
sweetness that Torpenhow knew well for the beginning of strife.

'Forgive me, sir, but you have no--no younger man who can arrange this
business with me?'

'I speak for the syndicate. I see no reason for a third party to----'

'You will in a minute. Be good enough to give back my sketches.'

The man stared blankly at Dick, and then at Torpenhow, who was leaning
against the wall. He was not used to ex-employees who ordered him to be
good enough to do things.

'Yes, it is rather a cold-blooded steal,' said Torpenhow, critically;
'but I'm afraid, I am very much afraid, you've struck the wrong man. Be
careful, Dick; remember, this isn't the Soudan.'

'Considering what services the syndicate have done you in putting your
name before the world----'

This was not a fortunate remark; it reminded Dick of certain vagrant
years lived out in loneliness and strife and unsatisfied desires. The
memory did not contrast well with the prosperous gentleman who proposed
to enjoy the fruit of those years.

'I don't know quite what to do with you,' began Dick, meditatively. 'Of
course you're a thief, and you ought to be half killed, but in your case
you'd probably die. I don't want you dead on this floor, and, besides,
it's unlucky just as one's moving in. Don't hit, sir; you'll only excite
yourself.'

He put one hand on the man's forearm and ran the other down the plump
body beneath the coat. 'My goodness!' said he to Torpenhow, 'and this
gray oaf dares to be a thief! I have seen an Esneh camel-driver have the
black hide taken off his body in strips for stealing half a pound of wet
dates, and he was as tough as whipcord. This things' soft all over--like
a woman.'

There are few th