llated
and twinkled unspeakable things at the little lady as the train carried
him away.

Assuredly Van Busch understood women no less thoroughly than his near
relative, Bough. He knew that you could bait for and catch the sex with
things that were not tangible. Men wanted to be made sure of money or
money's worth. And for the co-operation of P. Blinders in the adroit
little game by which the German drummer's refugee-widow who stayed at
Kink's Hotel, and only went out after dark, had been relieved of a
handsome sum, Van Busch had had to part with nearly one-third of the swag.
No wonder he felt and talked like a robbed man.

"All very well to talk," said P. Blinders, scratching his newest pimple,
and looking with exaggerated moonish simplicity at nobody in particular
through his large round magnifying spectacles. "But what could you have
done without me, once the little Englishwoman smelled the porcupine in the
barrel? When she drove out to your friend Bough's plaats at Haarsgrond in
that spider, pretending she was your sister that had married a Duitscher
drummer in Gueldersdorp, and buried him, and was afraid to be shut up in
the stad with all those lustful rooineks, you thought it would be enough
to tell her Staats Police or Transvaal burghers were after her to make her
creep into a mousehole and pay you to keep her hid. And it did work
nicely--for a while. Then the Englishwoman got angry--oh, very angry!--and
told you things that were not nice. Either you should put her in the way
of getting the information she wanted, or good-bye to her dear brother,
Hendryk Van Busch, and his friend Bough."

"For a pinch of mealies I'd have let the little shrew go, by thunder!"
said the affectionate relative. "But my good heart stopped me. The country
wasn't safe for a couple of women to go looping about," he added. "And one
of them with two hundred pounds in Bank of England notes stitched into the
front of her stays...."

"_Five_ hundred pounds," said the Secretary, with pleasantly twinkling
spectacles. Van Busch's stare was admirable in its incredulity.

"Sure, no, brother; not so much as that?"

"Trudi told me," smirked P. Blinders.

"You and her seem to be great and thick together," said Van Busch, with a
flattering leer. The little ex-apothecary placed his hand upon his chest,
and said, with a gleam of tenderness lighting up his spectacles:

"I have sighed, and she has smiled." He went on, "If your friend Bough had
bee