tion from
his servants, and I've learned a lot about him. Mind you," said Mr.
Webber, "I'm not quite certain how to use what I know to make money.
If I'd known that, I shouldn't have told you two chaps anything about
it. But I've got an idea that this chap Bones is a bit sensitive on a
certain matter, and Cully Tring, who's forgotten more about human men
than I ever knew, told me that, if you can get a mug on his sensitive
spot, you can bleed him to death. Now, three heads are better than
one, and I think, if we get together, we'll lift enough stuff from Mr.
Blinking Bones to keep us at Monte Carlo for six months."

"Then," said Mr. Seepidge impressively, "let us put our 'eads together."

In emotional moments that enterprising printer was apt to overlook the
box where the little "h's" were kept.

Bones had indeed moved into the intellectual atmosphere of Devonshire
Street. He had hired a flat of great beauty and magnificence, with
lofty rooms and distempered walls and marble chimney-pieces, for all
the world like those rooms in the catalogues of furniture dealers which
so admirably show off the fifty-pound drawing-room suite offered on the
easiest terms.

"My dear old thing," he said, describing his new splendours to
Hamilton, "you ought to see the jolly old bathroom!"

"What do you want a bath for?" asked Hamilton innocently. "You've only
got the place for three years."

"Now, dear old thing, don't be humorous," said Bones severely. "Don't
be cheap, dear old comic one."

"The question is," said Hamilton, "why the dickens do you want a new
flat? Your old flat was quite a palatial establishment. Are you
thinking of setting up housekeeping?"

Bones turned very red. In his embarrassment he stood first upon one
leg and then the other, lifting his eyebrows almost to the roof of his
head to let in his monocle, and lifted them as violently to let it out
again.

"Don't pry, don't pry, dear old Ham," he said testily. "Great Heavens
and Moses! Can't a fellow take a desirable flat, with all modern
conveniences, in the most fashionable part of the West End, and all
that sort of thing, without exciting the voice of scandal, dear old
thing? I'm surprised at you, really I am, Ham. I am, Ham," he
repeated. "That sounds good," he said, brightening up. "Am Ham!"

"But what is the scheme?" persisted Hamilton.

"A bargain, a bargain, dear old officer," said Bones, hurriedly, and
proceeded to the next business.