d
read it with great charm and interest, and was willing to purchase the
serial rights of the same for the sum of L250, L150 on the author's
signature to terms, and L100 on the day of the publication of the first
number.

'It's 'ard for a poor working man to be kep' out of his money like this,
sir,' the landlord moaned.

'Damn you!' said Paul. 'Listen to this.' He read the letter, and with a
start reverted to the date: 'September 27th, and this is October 27th!
I haven't tasted food these three days, or had a pinch of tobacco, and
this has been waiting for me--this--this--for a whole month! Explain,
you execrable! or, as sure as the brother of the sun reigns over
the Heavenly Empire, I will brain you with the poker. Shell out, you
villain!--shell out, to your last halfpenny! 'Ard for a poor working man
to be kep' out of his money, is it? Somebody in this infernal house has
kept me waiting and half starving for a month, whilst I have two hundred
and fifty pounds to my credit. What are you worth, you hoary inebriate?
Speak, or die!'

'Seven and eight,' said the landlord, 'and a bogus thrip-penny.'

'Give me five shillings!' cried Paul, snatching up the poker, and the
landlord pottered out the money.

Away tore Paul to the house round the corner. There were sausages there
frizzling in a metal-pan with a little row of blue gas-jets below it.
There was brandy there; there was beer. There was tobacco of a sort,
and there was an admirable whisky, not the diluted vitriol common to the
outlying London house before the passing of the Adulteration Act, but
honest whisky, mellow and old.

Paul, full of meat, and singing to himself behind his pipe, walked
homeward with a flask of that good liquor in his pocket, and there
behind was the landlord clinging to the railings at the bottom of the
area-steps and maundering to a policeman.

'Five shillings--'storted by threats. Tha's the man,' said the landlord.

'Come in, officer, and have a drink,' said Paul, and the officer, after
an upward and downward look along the street, marched into the house.
Paul gave him a drink instantly, and whilst the landlord hiccuped
''Started by threats 'he explained the situation. 'Of course, I made him
shell out,' said Paul. 'Wouldn't you?

'Well, I'm a guardian of the peace, myself, sir,' said the officer; 'but
it wouldn't ha' been more than five bob and costs if you'd ha' dressed
him down. Speaking as a man of uniform, as I may say, I should