o
the eminent firm of Timmins and Timmins, yacht agents, on a matter of a
luckless purchase of his.

"DEAR SIRS GENENTLEMEN" (ran the letter. Bones wrote as he thought,
thought faster than he wrote, and never opened a dictionary save to
decide a bet)--"I told you I have told you 100000 times that the yacht
_Luana_ I bought from your cleint (a nice cleint I must say!!!) is a
frord fruad and a _swindel_. It is much two too big. 2000 pounds was
a swindel outraygious!! Well I've got it got it now so theres theirs
no use crying over split milk. But do like a golly old yaght-seller
get red of it rid of it. Sell it to _anybody_ even for a 1000 pounds.
I must have been mad to buy it but he was such a plausuble chap...."

This and more he wrote and was writing, when the silvery bell announced
a visitor. It rang many times before he realized that he had sent his
factotum, Ali Mahomet, to the South Coast to recover from a
sniffle--the after-effects of a violent cold--which had been
particularly distressing to both. Four times the bell rang, and four
times Bones raised his head and scowled at the door, muttering violent
criticisms of a man who at that moment was eighty-five miles away.

Then he remembered, leapt up, sprinted to the door, flung it open with
an annoyed:

"Come in! What the deuce are you standing out there for?"

Then he stared at his visitor, choked, went very red, choked again, and
fixed his monocle.

"Come in, young miss, come in," he said gruffly. "Jolly old bell's out
of order. Awfully sorry and all that sort of thing. Sit down, won't
you?"

In the outer office there was no visible chair. The excellent Ali
preferred sitting on the floor, and visitors were not encouraged.

"Come into my office," said Bones, "my private office."

The girl had taken him in with one comprehensive glance, and a little
smile trembled on the corner of her lips as she followed the harassed
financier into his "holy of holies."

"My little den," said Bones incoherently. "Sit down, jolly old--young
miss. Take my chair--it's the best. Mind how you step over that
telephone wire. Ah!"

She did catch her feet in the flex, and he sprang to her assistance.

"Upsy, daisy, dear old--young miss, I mean."

It was a breathless welcome. She herself was startled by the warmth of
it; he, for his part, saw nothing but grey eyes and a perfect mouth,
sensed nothing but a delicate fragrance of a godlike presence.

"I h