ed.

He hesitated.

"I know him," he said shortly. "He has proved to me in a hundred ways
that he is a reliable, decent lad. He has become almost indispensable to
me," he continued with his quick little laugh, "and that Frank has never
been. Oh, yes, Frank's all right in his way, but he's crazy on things
which cut no ice with me. Too fond of sports, too fond of loafing," he
growled.

The girl laughed again.

"I can give you a little information on one point," John Minute went on,
"and it was to tell you this that I brought you here to-day. I am a very
rich man. You know that. I have made millions and lost them, but I have
still enough to satisfy my heirs. I am leaving you two hundred thousand
pounds in my will."

She looked at him with a startled exclamation.

"Uncle!" she said.

He nodded.

"It is not a quarter of my fortune," he went on quickly, "but it will
make you comfortable after I am gone."

He rested his elbows on the table and looked at her searchingly.

"You are an heiress," he said, "for, whatever you did, I should never
change my mind. Oh, I know you will do nothing of which I should
disapprove, but there is the fact. If you marry Frank you would still
get your two hundred thousand, though I should bitterly regret your
marriage. No, my girl," he said more kindly than was his wont, "I only
ask you this--that whatever else you do, you will not make your choice
until the next fortnight has expired."

With a jerk of his head, John Minute summoned a waiter and paid his
bill.

No more was said until he handed her into her cab in the courtyard.

"I shall be in town next week," he said.

He watched the cab disappear in the stream of traffic which flowed along
the Strand, and, calling another taxi, he drove to the address with
which the chief commissioner had furnished him.

CHAPTER VI

THE MAN WHO KNEW

Backwell Street, in the City of London, contains one palatial building
which at one time was the headquarters of the South American Stock
Exchange, a superior bucket shop which on its failure had claimed its
fifty thousand victims. The ornate gold lettering on its great
plate-glass window had long since been removed, and the big brass plate
which announced to the passerby that here sat the spider weaving his
golden web for the multitude of flies, had been replaced by a modest,
oxidized scroll bearing the simple legend:

SAUL ARTHUR MANN

What Mr. Mann