ught he would telephone the police, as I
suggested, describing Miss Dolly, but saying nothing about his lordship.

"He might do pusiness with us, Britten," he remarked. "I won't have
his dabe in it--but I'll tell him about her directly I get the chadce,
and she won't be long in his house, dow will she?"

"Perhaps not," said I; "but if she marries his lordship's son, the boot
will be on the other leg. You'd better think of that, Mr. Moss."

"What I want is my modey," he rejoined. "If she don't pay, she goes to
prison--I dow too much about the peerage to be stuffed with promises.
Either the modey or the writ. I'll feed here, Britten, and go back to
Sadwich, if she's not on the boats. Perhaps we were a couple of fools
to come at all."

I said nothing, but was pretty sure that one fool had come along in the
car, anyway. My business was to keep Moss at Dover as long as might
be, and in that I succeeded well enough. Nothing could save Miss Dolly
if he went blundering up to Lord Badington's house with his story of
what she'd done in London, and how fond certain West End tradesmen had
become of her. Given time enough, I believed the pretty little lady
would wheedle his lordship to consent to her marriage with Mr. Sarand.
But time she must have, and if she did not get it, well, then, time of
another kind might await her. It would have broken my heart to see
misfortune overtake pretty Dolly St. John, and I swore that it should
not, if any wit of mine could prevent it.

Moss took about an hour and a half over his dinner, and when he came
out he was picking his teeth with a great steel prong, and looking as
pleased as though he had done the hotel waiters out of fourpence. I
saw that he had come to some resolution, and that it was a satisfactory
one. There was a twinkle in his little eyes you could not mistake, and
he shook his head while he talked to me, just as though I were buying
old clothes of him at twice their value.

"Britten," he asked, "are you all ready?"

"Quite ready, sir," said I--for I'd just that minute shoved my knife
into another tyre. "Are you going back to Sandwich?"

"I'm going to Lord Badington's," says he, with a roar of laughter, "why
not? I'm going to ask for Miss Phyllis More, and say she's an ode fred
of the family. Ha, ha! what do you think of that, Britten? Will I get
the modey or won't I? Well, we'll see, my boy--so start her up, and be
quick about it."

I said "Yes, sir," and