t_ at Dorking, but working for my brother; Goodge--letters to be
paid for. It's all like the bits of mosaic that those antiquarian
fellows are always finding in the ruins of Somebody's Baths; a few
handfuls of coloured chips that look like rubbish, and can yet be
patched into a perfect geometric design. I'll hunt up a file of the
_Times_ at the Burton Institution, and find out this Haygarth, if he is
to be found there."

The Burton Institution was a somewhat dingy temple devoted to the
interests of science and literature, and next door to some baths that
were very popular among the denizens of Bloomsbury. People in quest of
the baths were apt to ascend the classic flight of steps leading to the
Institution, when they should have descended to a lowlier threshold
lurking modestly by the side of that edifice. The Baths and the
Institution had both been familiar to Mr. Sheldon in that period of
probation which he had spent in Fitzgeorge-street. He was sufficiently
acquainted with the librarian of the Institution to go in and out
uninterrogated, and to make any use he pleased of the reading-room. He
went in to-day, asked to see the latest bound volumes of the _Times_
and the latest files of unbound papers, and began his investigation,
working backwards. Rapidly and dexterously as he turned the big leaves
of the journals, the investigation occupied nearly three-quarters of an
hour; but at the expiration of that time he had alighted on the
advertisement published in the March of the preceding year.

He gave a very low whistle--a kind of phantom whistle--as he read this
advertisement. "John Haygarth!--a hundred thousand pounds!"

The fortune for which a claimant was lacking amounted to a hundred
thousand pounds! Mr. Sheldon knew commercial despots who counted their
wealth by millions, and whose fiat could sway the exchanges of Europe;
but a hundred thousand pounds seemed to him a very nice thing
nevertheless, and he was ready to dispute the prize the anticipation
whereof had rendered his brother so triumphant.

"He has rejected me as a coadjutor," he thought, as he went back to his
cab after having copied the advertisement; "he shall have me as an
antagonist."

"Omega-street, Chelsea, next call," he cried to the driver; and was
soon beyond the confines of Bloomsbury, and rattling away towards the
border-land of Belgravia. He had completed his search of the newspapers
at ten minutes past twelve, and at twenty minutes to one