onfidential conference as in a hansom driving through the
streets of London. Drive slowly towards the _Evening Graphite_ office,"
she said to the cabman, pushing up the trap-door in the roof of the
vehicle. Mr. Stoneham took his place beside her, and the cabman turned
his horse in the direction indicated.

"There is little use in going to the office of the paper," said
Stoneham; "there won't be anybody there but the watchman."

"I know, but we must go in some direction. We can't talk in front of
the Cafe Royal, you know. Now, Mr. Stoneham, in the first place, I want
fifty golden sovereigns. How am I to get them within half an hour?"

"Good gracious! I don't know; the banks are all closed, but there is a
man at Charing Cross who would perhaps change a cheque for me; there is
a cheque-book at the office."

"Then that's all right and settled. Mr. Stoneham, there's been some
juggling with the accounts in the office of the Board of Public
Construction."

"What! a defalcation?" cried Stoneham eagerly.

"No; merely a shifting round."

"Ah," said the editor, in a disappointed tone.

"Oh, you needn't say 'Ah.' It's very serious; it is indeed. The accounts
are calculated to deceive the dear and confiding public, to whose
interests all the daily papers, morning and evening, pretend to be
devoted. The very fact of such deception being attempted, Mr. Stoneham,
ought to call forth the anger of any virtuous editor."

"Oh, it does, it does; but then it would be a difficult matter to prove.
If some money were gone, now----"

"My dear sir, the matter is already proved, and quite ripe for your
energetic handling of it; that's what the fifty pounds are for. This
sum will secure for you--to-night, mind, not to-morrow--a statement
bristling with figures which the Board of Construction cannot deny. You
will be able, in a stirring leading article, to express the horror you
undoubtedly feel at the falsification of the figures, and your stern
delight in doing so will probably not be mitigated by the fact that no
other paper in London will have the news, while the matter will be
so important that next day all your beloved contemporaries will be
compelled to allude to it in some shape or other."

"I see," said the editor, his eyes glistening as the magnitude of the
idea began to appeal more strongly to his imagination. "Who makes this
statement, and how are we to know that it is absolutely correct?"

"Well, there is a point on which