where
he carefully counted and examined every one. "That's all right!" he
announced at the conclusion of his task. "Come and have one with me now
before you read your little billet-doux, eh?"

"I shall not read your report until after dinner," Mr. Sabin said,
"and I think if you are ready that we might as well go in. At the
head-waiter's suggestion I have ordered a cocktail with the oysters,
and if we are much later he seemed to fear that it might affect the
condition of the--I think it was terrapin, he said."

Mr. Skinner stopped short. His tone betrayed emotion.

"Did you say terrapin, sir?"

Mr. Sabin nodded. Mr. Skinner at once took his arm.

"Guess we'll go right in," he declared. "I hate to have a good meal
spoiled."

They were an old-looking couple. Mr. Sabin quietly but faultlessly
attired in the usual evening dinner garb, Mr. Skinner ill-dressed,
untidy, unwashed and frowsy. But here at least Mr. Sabin's incognito
had been unavailing, for he had stayed at the hotel several times--as he
remembered with an odd little pang--with Lucille, and the head-waiter,
with a low bow, ushered them to their table. Mr. Skinner saw the
preparations for their repast, the oysters, the cocktails in tall
glasses, the magnum of champagne in ice, and chuckled. To take supper
with a duke was a novelty to him, but he was not shy. He sat down and
tucked his serviette into his waistcoat, raised his glass, and suddenly
set it down again.

"The boss!" he exclaimed in amazement.

Mr. Sabin turned his head in the direction which his companion had
indicated. Coming hastily across the room towards them, already out of
breath as though with much hurrying, was a thick-set, powerful man, with
the brutal face and coarse lips of a prizefighter; a beard cropped so
short as to seem the growth of a few days only covered his chin, and his
moustache, treated in the same way, was not thick enough to conceal
a cruel mouth. He was carefully enough dressed, and a great diamond
flashed from his tie. There was a red mark round his forehead where his
hat had been, and the perspiration was streaming from his forehead. He
strode without hesitation to the table where Mr. Sabin and his guest
were sitting, and without even a glance at the former turned upon his
myrmidon.

"Where's that report?" he cried roughly. "Where is it?"

Mr. Skinner seemed to have shrunk into a smaller man. He pointed across
the table.

"I've given it to him," he said. "What's