uite impossible to interest him in the house at all, sir," he
declared. "He seemed inclined to take it at first, but directly he
understood the situation he would have nothing more to do with it."

Mr. Waddington's face fell. He was disappointed. He was also puzzled.

"Understood the situation," he repeated. "What the dickens do you mean,
Burton? What situation?"

"I mean about the typhoid, sir, and Lady Idlemay's refusal to have the
drains put in order."

Mr. Waddington's expression for a few moments was an interesting and
instructive study. His jaw had fallen, but he was still too bewildered
to realize the situation properly.

"But who told him?" he gasped.

"I did," Burton replied gently. "I could not possibly let him remain in
ignorance of the facts."

"You couldn't--what?"

"I could not let him the house without explaining all the circumstances,
sir," Burton declared, watching his senior anxiously. "I am sure you
would not have wished me to do anything of the sort, would you?"

What Mr. Waddington said was unimportant. There was very little that
he forgot and he was an auctioneer with a low-class clientele and a fine
flow of language. When he had finished, the office-boy was dumb with
admiration. Burton was looking a little pained and he had the shocked
expression of a musician who has been listening to a series of discords.
Otherwise he was unmoved.

"Your duty was to let that house," Mr. Waddington wound up, striking
the palm of one hand with the fist of the other. "What do I give you
forty-four shillings a week for, I should like to know? To go and blab
trade secrets to every customer that comes along? If you couldn't get
him to sign the lease, you ought to have worked a deposit, at any rate.
He'd have had to forfeit that, even if he'd found out afterwards."

"I am sorry," Burton said, speaking in a much lower tone than was usual
with him, but with a curious amount of confidence. "It would have been
a moral falsehood if I had attempted anything of the sort. I could not
possibly offer the house to Mr. Lynn or anybody else, without
disclosing its drawbacks."

The auctioneer's face had become redder. His eyes seemed on the point
of coming out of his head. He became almost incoherent.

"God bless my soul!" he spluttered. "Have you gone mad, Burton? What's
come to you since the morning? Have you changed into a blithering fool,
or what?"

"I think not, sir," Burton replied, gravely. "I don't--exactly