ing with the intention of approaching Mr. Fineberg
on the important matter of a rise in salary. Mr. Coppin removed his
saucer of tea from his lips. Frank brushed the tail of a sardine from
the corner of his mouth. Percy ate his haddock in an undertone. Albert
Potter, who was present, glowered silently.

Roland shook his head with the nearest approach to gloom which his
rejoicing heart would permit.

"I'm afraid I've bad news."

Mrs. Coppin burst into tears, her invariable practise in any crisis.
Albert Potter's face relaxed into something resembling a smile.

"He won't give you your raise?"

Roland sighed.

"He's reduced me."

"Reduced you!"

"Yes. Times are bad just at present, so he has had to lower me to a
hundred and ten."

The collected jaws of the family fell as one jaw. Muriel herself seemed
to be bearing the blow with fortitude, but the rest were stunned. Frank
and Percy might have been posing for a picture of men who had lost their
fountain pens.

Beneath the table the hand of Albert Potter found the hand of Muriel
Coppin, and held it; and Muriel, we regret to add, turned and bestowed
upon Albert a half-smile of tender understanding.

"I suppose," said Roland, "we couldn't get married on a hundred and
ten?"

"No," said Percy.

"No," said Frank.

"No," said Albert Potter.

They all spoke decidedly, but Albert the most decidedly of the three.

"Then," said Roland regretfully, "I'm afraid we must wait."

It seemed to be the general verdict that they must wait. Muriel said she
thought they must wait. Albert Potter, whose opinion no one had asked,
was quite certain that they must wait. Mrs. Coppin, between sobs, moaned
that it would be best to wait. Frank and Percy, morosely devouring
bread and jam, said they supposed they would have to wait. And, to end a
painful scene, Roland drifted silently from the room, and went up-stairs
to his own quarters.

There was a telegram on the mantel.

"Some fellows," he soliloquized happily, as he opened it, "wouldn't
have been able to manage a little thing like that. They would have given
themselves away. They would----"

The contents of the telegram demanded his attention.

For some time they conveyed nothing to him. The thing might have been
written in Hindustani.

It would have been quite appropriate if it had been, for it was from the
promoters of the Calcutta Sweep, and it informed him that, as the holder
of ticket number 108,694, he had drawn G