oyed these two reverend gentlemen to detain us at our
houses so as to let him have the field to himself."

"And of course," said the late Mr Shorter apologetically to me, "as I
had to keep a gentleman at home from keeping an appointment with a lady,
I had to come with something rather hot and strong--rather urgent. It
wouldn't have done to be tame."

"Oh," I said, "I acquit you of tameness."

"Thank you, sir," said the man respectfully, "always very grateful for
any recommendation, sir."

The other man idly pushed back his artificial bald head, revealing close
red hair, and spoke dreamily, perhaps under the influence of Basil's
admirable Burgundy.

"It's wonderful how common it's getting, gentlemen. Our office is busy
from morning till night. I've no doubt you've often knocked up against
us before. You just take notice. When an old bachelor goes on boring you
with hunting stories, when you're burning to be introduced to somebody,
he's from our bureau. When a lady calls on parish work and stops hours,
just when you wanted to go to the Robinsons', she's from our bureau. The
Robinson hand, sir, may be darkly seen."

"There is one thing I don't understand," I said. "Why you are both
vicars."

A shade crossed the brow of the temporary incumbent of Chuntsey, in
Essex.

"That may have been a mistake, sir," he said. "But it was not our fault.
It was all the munificence of Captain Fraser. He requested that the
highest price and talent on our tariff should be employed to detain
you gentlemen. Now the highest payment in our office goes to those who
impersonate vicars, as being the most respectable and more of a strain.
We are paid five guineas a visit. We have had the good fortune to
satisfy the firm with our work; and we are now permanently vicars.
Before that we had two years as colonels, the next in our scale.
Colonels are four guineas."

Chapter 4. The Singular Speculation of the House-Agent

Lieutenant Drummond Keith was a man about whom conversation always burst
like a thunderstorm the moment he left the room. This arose from many
separate touches about him. He was a light, loose person, who wore
light, loose clothes, generally white, as if he were in the tropics; he
was lean and graceful, like a panther, and he had restless black eyes.

He was very impecunious. He had one of the habits of the poor, in a
degree so exaggerated as immeasurably to eclipse the most miserable of
the unemployed; I mean the habit