nted with sooty paint. He wondered what accounted for its being
planted there; but it offered shelter for the night and he went in.

He admitted that he had slept in worse places than the room he was
shown, although it looked far from comfortable, but the supper he got
was good, and he afterwards entered a small room behind the bar. There
was a bright fire, near which he sat down when Pete went away. The
strain he had borne had brought its reaction; he felt tired and slack.
There was another room across the passage, and he smelt rank tobacco
and heard voices speaking a harsh dialect and the tramp of heavy boots
on boards. The door was open and men with curiously pale faces that
did not look clean passed now and then. Foster thought they were
colliers and he had nothing to fear from them.

He had two or three companions, who sat round a small table and seemed
by their talk to belong to a football committee. The landlord treated
them with some deference, as if they were important people, but Foster
wished they would go. He wanted to examine the letters, but thought it
safer to wait until he was alone, since inquiries might afterwards be
made about him. At length the footballers went way, and shutting the
door, he turned his chair so that he could see anybody who came in,
without looking round. It was satisfactory to note that the table
would be between him and a new-comer.

Before opening the letters, he tried to recollect what had happened in
Graham's office. The fellow sat in front of a desk with a row of
pigeon-holes and sides that prevented Foster's noting exactly what he
did after he began to write. In consequence, Foster could not tell if
he had put anything except the letters in the envelopes, although he
had taken some papers from the safe. It looked as if Graham had not
meant him to see and had not trusted him altogether from the beginning.
Now he probably knew he was an impostor, although this was not quite
certain. Foster took out the envelopes, and broke the seal of the
first, which was addressed to Daly, without hesitation.

It contained a tourist agency's circular cheque for a moderate sum,
payable by coupons at any of the company's offices in England and
Canada, and Foster saw the advantage of this, because, as the offices
were numerous, one could not tell where the coupons would be cashed.
Then he found a letter, which he thought bore out his conclusions,
although, on the surface, it did no