et me have the paper, sir," Jimmie put in, curtly.

The Jew at once bestirred himself. He opened a safe in which little
bundles of documents were neatly arranged, and in a couple of minutes he
produced the sheaf of bills that had so nearly been the ruin of his
aristocratic young client. The first one was among the number; it had
been renewed several times, on Nevill's indorsement.

The affair was quickly settled. The solicitor went carefully over Mr.
Benjamin's figures, representing principal and interest up to date, and
expressed himself as satisfied; it was extortionate but legal, he
declared. The sum total was a little over twenty-five hundred
pounds--Bertie had received less than two-thirds of it in cash--and
Jimmie promptly hauled out a fat roll of Bank of England notes and paid
down the amount. He took the canceled paper, nodded coldly to the Jew,
and left the money-lender's office with his companions.

Mr. Grimsby, declining an invitation to lunch, hailed a cab and went off
to the city to keep an appointment with a client. The other two walked
on to Piccadilly, and Bertie remembered that morning, months before,
when Victor Nevill had helped him out of his difficulties, only to get
him into a tighter hole.

"No person but myself was to blame," he thought. "Nevill meant it as a
kindness, and he advised me to pull up when he found what I was drifting
into--I never mentioned the last bill to him. Dear old Jimmie, he's
given me another chance! How jolly to feel that one is rid of such a
burden! I haven't drawn an easy breath for weeks."

"We'll go to my place first," said Jimmie. "I want a wash after the
atmosphere of that Jew's den. And then we'll lunch together."

It was a dull and cheerless day, but the sitting-room in the Albany
looked quite different to Bertie as he entered it. Was it only a few
hours before, he wondered, that he had stood there by the window in the
act of taking that life which had become too great a burden to bear? And
in the blackness of his despair, when he saw no glimmer of hope, the
clouds had rolled away. He glanced at the pistol, harmlessly resting on
a shelf, and a rush of gratitude filled his heart and brought tears to
his eyes. He clasped his friend's hand and tried incoherently to thank
him.

"Come, none of that," Jimmie said, brusquely. "Let us talk of something
more interesting. I have a pot of money; and this stuff," pulling out
the packet of bills, "don't even make a hole i