ipped old idol off his
perch. There was already a healthy feeling among the shareholders that
he was past work and should be scrapped. The old chap should find that
Charles V. was not to be defied; that when he got his teeth into a thing,
he did not let it go. By hook or crook he would have the old man off his
Boards, or his debt out of him as the price of leaving him alone. His
life or his money--and the old fellow should determine which. With the
memory of that defiance fresh within him, he almost hoped it might come
to be the first, and turning to Mrs. Ventnor, he said abruptly:

"Have a little dinner Friday week, and ask young Pillin and the curate."
He specified the curate, a tee-totaller, because he had two daughters,
and males and females must be paired, but he intended to pack him off
after dinner to the drawing-room to discuss parish matters while he and
Bob Pillin sat over their wine. What he expected to get out of the young
man he did not as yet know.

On the day of the dinner, before departing for the office, he had gone to
his cellar. Would three bottles of Perrier Jouet do the trick, or must
he add one of the old Madeira? He decided to be on the safe side. A
bottle or so of champagne went very little way with him personally, and
young Pillin might be another.

The Madeira having done its work by turning the conversation into such an
admirable channel, he had cut it short for fear young Pillin might drink
the lot or get wind of the rat. And when his guests were gone, and his
family had retired, he stood staring into the fire, putting together the
pieces of the puzzle. Five or six thousand pounds--six would be ten per
cent. on sixty! Exactly! Scrivens--young Pillin had said! But Crow &
Donkin, not Scriven & Coles, were old Heythorp's solicitors. What could
that mean, save that the old man wanted to cover the tracks of a secret
commission, and had handled the matter through solicitors who did not
know the state of his affairs! But why Pillin's solicitors? With this
sale just going through, it must look deuced fishy to them too. Was it
all a mare's nest, after all? In such circumstances he himself would
have taken the matter to a London firm who knew nothing of anybody.
Puzzled, therefore, and rather disheartened, feeling too that touch of
liver which was wont to follow his old Madeira, he went up to bed and
woke his wife to ask her why the dickens they couldn't always have soup
like that!