ful if you can. When I
want to deal with you, Britten, it will be another way
altogether--cash, my boy; have you any objection to a little cash?"

I opened my eyes wide, telling myself, for the second time, that he was
as certainly mad as any March hare in the picture-books; but I said
nothing, for he had turned to a little wooden cupboard near the
fireplace, and before he spoke again he set a bottle of whisky, a
syphon, and two tumblers on the table, and poured out a stiffish dose
for himself and its fellow for me. When I had watched him drink it,
and not before, I followed suit, and never did a man want a whisky and
soda as badly.

"Your health," says he--I believe I wished him the same. "And little
Mabel Bellamy's----"

I put the glass down on the table with a bang.

"Good God!" said I, "not Mabel Bellamy that did the disappearing trick
at the Folies Bergeres in Paris two years ago?"

"The same," says he.

"And you are telling me----"

"That she was a very fine actress. Do you deny it, Mr. Britten?"

I rose and buttoned my coat--but the black look was in his eyes again.

"Britten," says he, "not in so much of a hurry, if you please. I am
going round to the _Daily Herald_ this afternoon to get that five
hundred. You will sit here until I return, when I shall pay you fifty
of the best. Is it a bargain, Britten--have we the right to the money
or have you?"

I thought upon it for a moment and could not deny the justice of it.

"Do you mean to say you did it for an advertisement?" I cried.

"The very same," says he, "and this night, Mabel's fond papa, the
gentleman with the big eyes, Britten, will go to Hampstead and take his
long-lost daughter to his breast. She makes her first appearance at
the Casino Theatre to-morrow night, Britten----"

I rose and shook him by the hand.

"Fifty of the best," said I, "and I'll wait for them here."

* * * * *

Well, I must say it was a tidy good notion, first for the pair of them
to work a trick like that on the public just for the sake of letting
all the world know that Mabel Bellamy was to disappear from a basket at
the Casino Theatre; and secondly, dropping on the _Daily Herald_ for
five hundred of the best--and getting it, too, before the story got
wind.

You see, the _Herald_ lost no money, for they had a fine scoop all to
their little selves, while the other papers gnashed their teeth and
looked on. Nor was the whole truth