"

"Hush," said I. "What did Alfred Austin say in 1895?"

"I know," said Berry. "'Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet
'tis early morn.' Precisely. But then all his best work was admittedly
done under the eiderdown."

The clock upon the wall was chiming the hour. Two o'clock.

Would Jonah never come?

I fancy the same query renewed its hammering at Berry's brain, for,
after a moment's reflection, he turned to the master.

"I don't wish to presume upon your courtesy," he said, "but will the
executive portion of your night's work finish when that remaining
treasure has been bestowed?"

"So far as you are concerned."

"Oh, another appointment! Of course, this 'summer time' stunt gives you
another hour, doesn't it? Well, I must wish you a warmer welcome."

"That were impossible," was the bland reply "Once or twice, I must
confess, I thought you a little--er, equivocal, but let that pass. I
only regret that Mrs. Pleydell, particularly, should have been so much
inconvenienced."

"Don't mention it," said Berry. "As a matter of fact, we're all very
pleased to have met you. You have interested us more than I can say,
with true chivalry you have abstained from murder and mutilation, and
you have suffered me to blow my nose, when a less courteous visitor
would have obliged me to sniff with desperate and painful regularity for
nearly half an hour. Can generosity go further?"

The rogue upon the club-kerb began to shake with laughter again.

"You're a good loser," he crowed. "I'll give you that. I'm quite glad
you came down. Most of my hosts I never see, and that's dull, you know,
dull. And those I do are so often--er--unsympathetic. Yes, I shall
remember to-night."

"Going to change his rings," murmured Berry.

"And now the highly delicate question of our departure is, I am afraid,
imminent. To avoid exciting impertinent curiosity, you will appreciate
that we must take our leave as artlessly as possible, and that the order
of our going must be characterized by no unusual circumstance, such, for
instance, as a hue and cry. Anything so vulgar as a scene must at all
costs be obviated. Excuse me. Blake!"

Confederate Number One stepped noiselessly to his side and listened in
silence to certain instructions, which were to us inaudible.

I looked about me.

The last of the silver had disappeared. The packer was dismantling the
scales as a preliminary to laying them in the last suit-case. The clerk
was fast