nses, sir?"

"Yes, everything."

"Would five and twenty guineas a head be too much?"

"No; I will do better than that. I will give you five and twenty guineas
each when we get to Amsterdam, and I will give you another twenty-five
each if I come back here safe and sound."

"Well, I call that handsome. One could not want more, and you can rely
on it that Tring will jump at the offer. He has not been able to get a
fight on lately, and he is rather in low water."

"Well, you will both get up as quiet traders. I don't know what other
passengers there may be, but I don't want them to know that you belong
to the fancy."

"I twig, sir. We will get up quiet like."

"Then I want you tomorrow morning, Gibbons, to go down to Holmes
& Moore, No. 67 Tower Street, and take two first class tickets to
Amsterdam on board the Essex, which sails on Saturday. I don't know what
the passage money will be, but this is sure to be enough; and we can
settle accounts afterwards. You will find out what time of day she will
start."

"All right, governor. I suppose you will be here again before that?"

"No, I don't suppose I shall, unless there is some change in the
arrangements. If for any reasons Tring cannot go with you, you will
get somebody else instead. You are sure that you quite understand
your instructions? Here is the name and address of the people in Tower
Street."

"All right, sir. You may make sure that when you go down to the ship you
will see the two of us on board."

It needed but a few minutes at Bow Street to inform the chief of the
arrangements that had been made.

"I have told off Chester and Malcolm; one of them shall go down and
take their tickets. Of course, they will take their passages in the fore
cabin, as the danger, if there is danger, may come from there, and you
will have your other two men with you aft. I fancy myself that there is
hardly any chance of your being in any way troubled while on board.
It will be considered that there will be a vastly greater chance of
carrying out any plan they may have formed at Amsterdam than there would
be on board a ship; you see, if there were any struggle whatever on
board there would be no escape for them.

"For myself, of course I cannot give any opinion worth having in a
matter so different from anything we have to do with here, and I should
have unhesitatingly scoffed at the idea of anyone watching the movements
of people for a long number of years in order to ob