mph! That means you love another."

"I am not bound to tell you my private affairs, Professor."

"Quite so: quite so; but Inez is a pretty and romantic name."

"I don't know what you are talking about, sir," said Random stiffly.

Braddock chuckled, having read the truth in the flush which had crept
over Random's tanned face.

"I ask your pardon," he said elaborately. "I am an old man, and I
was your father's friend. You must not mind if I have been a trifle
inquisitive."

"Say no more, sir: that is all right."

"I don't agree with you, Random. Things are not all right and never will
be until my mummy is discovered. Now you can help me."

"In what way?" asked the other uneasily.

"With money. Understand, my boy," added the Professor in a genial way
which he knew well how to assume, "I should have preferred Lucy becoming
your wife. However, since she prefers Hope, there's no more to be said
on that score. I therefore will not make the offer I came here to make."

"An offer, sir?"

"Yes! I fancied that you loved Lucy and were broken-hearted by the news
of her engagement to Hope. I therefore intended to ask you to give me,
or rather lend me, five hundred pounds on condition that I helped you
to--"

"Stop, Professor," said Random, coloring, "I should never have bought
Miss Kendal as my wife on those terms."

"Of course! of course! and--as I say--there is no more to be said. I
shall therefore agree to Lucy's engagement to Hope"--Braddock carefully
omitted to say that he had already agreed and had been paid one thousand
pounds to agree--"and will congratulate you when you lead Donna Inez to
the altar."

"I never said anything about Donna Inez, Professor Braddock."

"Of course not: modern reticence. However, I can see through a brick
wall as well as most people. I understand, so let us drop the subject,
my boy. And this five hundred pounds--"

"I cannot lend it to you, Professor. The fact is, I lost heaps of coin
at Monte Carlo, and am not in a position to--"

"Very good, let us shelve that also," said Braddock with apparent
heartiness, although he was really very angry at his failure. "I am
sorry, though, as I wish to get back the mummy and to revenge poor
Sidney Bolton's death."

"How can the five hundred do that?" asked Random with interest.

"Well," drawled the Professor with his eyes on the young man's attentive
face, "Captain Hervey of The Diver came to me yesterday and proposed
to search for the a