omething derogatory or
indiscreet, or something which added distinction to Phyllis, Bob Pillin
hesitated, then gave a nod.

Mr. Ventnor rose and extended his short legs before the fire.

"No, my boy," he said. "No!"

Unaccustomed to flat contradiction, Bob Pillin reddened.

"I'll bet you a tenner. Ask Scrivens."

Mr. Ventnor ejaculated:

"Scrivens---but they're not--" then, staring rather hard, he added: "I
won't bet. You may be right. Scrivens are your father's solicitors too,
aren't they? Always been sorry he didn't come to me. Shall we join the
ladies?" And to the drawing-room he preceded a young man more uncertain
in his mind than on his feet....

Charles Ventnor was not one to let you see that more was going on within
than met the eye. But there was a good deal going on that evening, and
after his conversation with young Bob he had occasion more than once to
turn away and rub his hands together. When, after that second creditors'
meeting, he had walked down the stairway which led to the offices of "The
Island Navigation Company," he had been deep in thought. Short, squarely
built, rather stout, with moustache and large mutton-chop whiskers of a
red brown, and a faint floridity in face and dress, he impressed at first
sight only by a certain truly British vulgarity. One felt that here was
a hail-fellow--well-met man who liked lunch and dinner, went to
Scarborough for his summer holidays, sat on his wife, took his daughters
out in a boat and was never sick. One felt that he went to church every
Sunday morning, looked upwards as he moved through life, disliked the
unsuccessful, and expanded with his second glass of wine. But then a
clear look into his well-clothed face and red-brown eyes would give the
feeling: 'There's something fulvous here; he might be a bit too foxy.' A
third look brought the thought: 'He's certainly a bully.' He was not a
large creditor of old Heythorp. With interest on the original, he
calculated his claim at three hundred pounds--unredeemed shares in that
old Ecuador mine. But he had waited for his money eight years, and could
never imagine how it came about that he had been induced to wait so long.
There had been, of course, for one who liked "big pots," a certain
glamour about the personality of old Heythorp, still a bit of a swell in
shipping circles, and a bit of an aristocrat in Liverpool. But during
the last year Charles Ventnor had realised that the old chap's star h