ands the
interests of many citizens of Transham and the country round were almost
securely deposited. He occupied, curiously enough, the house where
Edmund Morton himself had lived, conducting his works on the one hand and
the squirearchy of the parish on the other. Incorporated now into the
line of a long, loose street, it still stood rather apart from its
neighbors, behind some large shrubs and trees of the holmoak variety.

Mr. Pogram, who was finishing his Sunday after-lunch cigar, was a short,
clean-shaved man with strong cheeks and those rather lustful gray-blue
eyes which accompany a sturdy figure. He rose when they were introduced,
and, uncrossing his fat little thighs, asked what he could do for them.

Felix propounded the story of the arrest, so far as might be, in words of
one syllable, avoiding the sentimental aspect of the question, and
finding it hard to be on the side of disorder, as any modern writer
might. There was something, however, about Mr. Pogram that reassured
him. The small fellow looked a fighter--looked as if he would
sympathize with Tryst's want of a woman about him. The tusky but
soft-hearted little brute kept nodding his round, sparsely covered head
while he listened, exuding a smell of lavender-water, cigars, and
gutta-percha. When Felix ceased he said, rather dryly:

"Sir Gerald Malloring? Yes. Sir Gerald's country agents, I rather
think, are Messrs. Porter of Worcester. Quite so."

And a conviction that Mr. Pogram thought they should have been Messrs.
Pogram & Collet of Transham confirmed in Felix the feeling that they had
come to the right man.

"I gather," Mr. Pogram said, and he looked at Nedda with a glance from
which he obviously tried to remove all earthly desires, "that you, sir,
and your nephew wish to go and see the man. Mrs. Pogram will be
delighted to show Miss Freeland our garden. Your great-grandfather, sir,
on the mother's side, lived in this house. Delighted to meet you; often
heard of your books; Mrs. Pogram has read one--let me see--'The
Bannister,' was it?"

"'The Balustrade,'" Felix answered gently.

Mr. Pogram rang the bell. "Quite so," he said. "Assizes are just over
so that he can't come up for trial till August or September; pity--great
pity! Bail in cases of arson--for a laborer, very doubtful! Ask your
mistress to come, please."

There entered a faded rose of a woman on whom Mr. Pogram in his time had
evidently made a great impression. A