grounds. Mustn't
it make a man feel he ought to sing very small when he's been caught
out in a little thing like that?"

"That's so," said Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, with a tone in his voice of
positive gratitude. Gratitude, to the man whom he'd been blackening and
showing up, this very afternoon! Together they seemed to be making
common cause against the detective, who was rushing Miss Million up to
town and to durance vile!

The detective said less than any man with whom I've ever spent the same
length of time.

But I believe he took it all in!

"Then there were the Ballycool murders, when they were as near as dash
it to hanging the wrong man," pursued Mr. James Burke. "Of course, that
was when my grandfather was a boy. So that particular show-up would be
before your time, officer, possibly."

"Eighteen Sixty-Two, sir," said the detective briefly.

"Ah, yes, I remember," mused the Honourable Jim, who, I suppose, must
have been born about Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-Seven himself. "Ah,
yes; but then, some aspects of life, and love, and law don't seem to
alter much, do they?"

"That's correct, Mr. Burke," said Mr. Hiram P. Jessop again in his most
empresse American.

"Then," pursued the ineffable Irish voice as we whizzed along, "there's
that case of the Indian tray that was missing from that wealthy
bachelor's rooms--but I misremember the exact end of that story.

"Plenty of them on record in this country as well as America. I daresay
you agree with me, Jessop?"

Mr. Jessop, sitting there in the hurrying car, seemed to be agreeing
with everything that Mr. Burke chose to say.

The young American, from what glimpses I caught of his firm, short,
Dana-Gibson-like profile against the blue night sky, was full of the
tenderest and most rueful concern for the little cousin who was involved
in this pretty kettle of fish.

His broad, though padded, form was sitting very close to the minute,
dejected figure of Miss Million, who had gradually ceased to shudder and
to whimper "Oh, lor'! Oh, my! Oh, whatever is going to happen to us
now!" as she had done at the beginning of the journey.

She was, I realised, a little cheered and encouraged now. From a
movement that I had noticed under Miss Vi Vassity's sable motor-rug I
guessed that Mr. Jessop had taken his cousin's hand, and that he was
holding it as we drove.

Well, after all, why shouldn't he? They are cousins.

Also it's quite on the cards that she may accept him