ut the door and go about your
business.'

'Shall I fetch a p'liceman, sir?' shrilled the servant.

Her master, sufficiently restored to his senses to perceive that he had not
the least chance in a pugilistic encounter with Mr. Lott, drew back and
seemed to hesitate.

'Answer the girl,' said Mr. Lott, as he picked up his whip and examined its
condition. 'Shall we have a policeman in?'

'Shut the door!' Charles shouted fiercely.

The men gazed at each other. Daffy was pale and quivering; his hair in
disorder, his waistcoat torn open, collar and necktie twisted into rags, he
made a pitiful figure. The timber-merchant was slightly heated, but his
countenance wore an expression of calm contentment.

'For the present,' remarked Mr. Lott, as he took up his hat and stick, 'I
think our business is at an end. It isn't often that a fellow of your sort
gets his deserts, and I'm rather sorry we didn't have the policeman in; a
report of the case might do good. I bid you good day, young man. If I were
you I'd sit quiet for an hour or two, and just reflect--you've a _lot_ to
think about.'

So, with a pleasant smile, the visitor took his leave.

As he walked away he again examined the riding-whip. 'It isn't often a
thing happens so luckily,' he said to himself. 'First-rate whip; hardly a
bit damaged. Harry'll like it none the worse for my having handselled it.'

At the station he found Mr. Daffy and Bowles, who regarded him with
questioning looks.

'Nothing to be got out of him,' said Mr. Lott. 'Bowles, I want a talk with
you and Jane; it'll be best, perhaps, if I go back home with you. Mr.
Daffy, sorry we can't travel down together. You'll catch the eight
o'clock.'

'I hope you told him plainly what you thought of him,' said Mr. Daffy, in a
voice of indignant shame.

'I did,' answered the timber-merchant, 'and I don't think he's very likely
to forget it.'

FATE AND THE APOTHECARY

'Farmiloe. Chemist by Examination.' So did the good man proclaim himself to
a suburb of a city in the West of England. It was one of those pretty,
clean, fresh-coloured suburbs only to be found in the west; a few dainty
little shops, everything about them bright or glistening, scattered among
pleasant little houses with gardens eternally green and all but perennially
in bloom; every vista ending in foliage, and in one direction a far glimpse
of the Cathedral towers, sending forth their music to fall dreamily upon
these quiet roads. T