wned" to the floor,
their eyes following his every movement.

Nor had his own financial situation begun as yet to trouble him. Todd
and Pawson, however, had long since become nervous. More than once had
they put their heads together for some plan by which sufficient money
could be raised for current expenses. In this praiseworthy effort, to
Todd's unbounded astonishment, Pawson had one night developed a plan
in which the greatly feared and much-despised Gadgem was to hold first
place. Indeed on the very morning succeeding the receipt of Pawson's
letter and at an hour when St. George would be absent at the club, there
had come a brisk rat-a-tat on the front door and Gadgem had sidled in.

Todd had not seen the collector since that eventful morning when he
stood by ready to pick up the pieces of that gentleman's dismembered
body when his master was about to throw him into the street for doubting
his word, and he now studied him with the greatest interest. The first
thing that struck him was the collector's clothes. As the summer was
approaching he had changed his winter suit for a combination of brown
linen bound with black--(second hand, of course, its former owner
having gone out of mourning) and at the moment sported a moth-eaten,
crape-encircled white beaver with a floppy, two-inch brim, a rusty black
stock that grabbed him close under the chin, completely submerging his
collar, and a pair of congress gaiters very much run down at the heel.
He was evidently master of himself and the situation, for he stood
looking from Todd to the young lawyer, a furtive, anxious expression
on his face that betokened both a surprise at being sent for and a
curiosity to learn the cause, although no word of inquiry passed his
lips.

Pawson's opening remark calmed the collector's suspicions.

"EXactly," he answered in a relieved tone, when the plot had been fully
developed, dragging a mate of the red bandanna--a blue one--from his
pocket and blowing his nose in an impressive manner. "EXactly--quite
right--quite right--difficult perhaps--ENORmously difficult
but--yes--quite right."

Then there had followed a hurried consultation, during which the
bullet-headed darky absorbed every word, his eyes rolling about in his
head, his breath ending somewhere near his jugular vein.

These details duly agreed upon, Gadgem bowed himself out of the
dining-room, carrying with him a note-book filled with such data as:

2 fowling pieces made