give my man his sixpence until the reproachful intonation of his
adieu recalled me to myself. And my couch in the cooling gallery--my
favorite couch, in my favorite corner, which I had secured with gusto
on coming in--it was a bed of thorns, with hideous visions of a
plank-bed to follow!

I ought to be able to add that I heard the burglary discussed on
adjacent couches before I left I certainly listened for it, and was
rather disappointed more than once when I had held my breath in vain.
But this is the unvarnished record of an odious hour, and it passed
without further aggravation from without; only, as I drove to Sloane
Street, the news was on all the posters, and on one I read of "a clew"
which spelt for me a doom I was grimly resolved to share.

Already there was something in the nature of a "run" up on the Sloane
Street branch of the City and Suburban. A cab drove away with a chest
of reasonable dimensions as mine drove up, while in the bank itself a
lady was making a painful scene. As for the genial clerk who had
roared at my jokes the day before, he was mercifully in no mood for any
more, but, on the contrary, quite rude to me at sight.

"I've been expecting you all the afternoon," said he. "You needn't
look so pale."

"Is it safe?"

"That Noah's Ark of yours? Yes, so I hear; they'd just got to it when
they were interrupted, and they never went back again."

"Then it wasn't even opened?"

"Only just begun on, I believe."

"Thank God!"

"You may; we don't," growled the clerk. "The manager says he believes
your chest was at the bottom of it all."

"How could it be?" I asked uneasily.

"By being seen on the cab a mile off, and followed," said the clerk.

"Does the manager want to see me?" I asked boldly.

"Not unless you want to see him," was the blunt reply. "He's been at
it with others all the afternoon, and they haven't all got off as cheap
as you."

"Then my silver shall not embarrass you any longer," said I grandly. "I
meant to leave it if it was all right, but after all you have said I
certainly shall not. Let your man or men bring up the chest at once.
I dare say they also have been 'at it with others all the afternoon,'
but I shall make this worth their while."

I did not mind driving through the streets with the thing this time. My
present relief was too overwhelming as yet to admit of pangs and fears
for the immediate future. No summer sun had ever shone more brightly
than tha