the sporting baronet
who knew my uncle? Now, I'm plain Robert Welsh, whose uncles, as far as I
am aware, don't know a baronet among 'em."

He smiled a little sardonically.

"And the baron at Fogelschloss," said Twiddel.

"Who insisted on learning my pedigree back to Alfred the Great! Gad, I
gave it him, though, and I doubt whether the real Essington could have
done as much. I'd rather surprise some of these noblemen if I turned up
again in my true character!"

"Thank the Lord, we're not likely to meet them again!" exclaimed the
doctor, devoutly.

"No," said Welsh; "here endeth the second lesson."

His friend, who had been well brought up, looked a trifle uncomfortable at
this quotation.

"I say," he remarked a few minutes later, "we haven't finished yet. We've
got to get the man out again, and hand him back to his friends."

"Cured," said Welsh, with a laugh.

"I wonder how he is?"

"We'll soon see."

They fell silent again, while the train hurried nearer and nearer London
town. Welsh seemed to be musing on some nice point, it might be of
conscience, it might also conceivably be of a more practical texture. At
last he said, "There's just one thing, old man. What about the fee?"

"I'll get a cheque for it, I suppose," his friend replied, with an almost
excessive air of mastery over the problem.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Welsh; "you know what I mean. It's a delicate question
and all that, but, hang it, it's got to be answered."

"What has?"

"The division of the spoil."

Twiddel looked dignified.

"I'll see you get your share, old man," he answered, easily.

"But what share?"

"You suggested L100, I think."

"Out of L500--when I've done all the deceiving and told all the lies! Come,
old man!"

"Well, what do you want?"

"Do you remember a certain crisis when we'd made a slip----"

"You'd made a slip!"

"_We_ had made a slip, and you wanted to chuck the game and bolt? Do you
remember also the terms I proposed when I offered to beard the local god
almighty in his lair and explain it all away, and how he became our bosom
pal and we were saved?"

"Well?"

"L300 to me, L200 to you," said Welsh, decisively.

"Rot, old man. I'll share fairly, if you insist. L250 apiece, will that
do?"

Welsh said nothing, but his face was no longer the countenance of the
jovial adventurer.

"It will have to, I suppose," he replied, at length.

It was with this little cloud on the horizon that they saw the light