y stepson-in-law. You're young, you know, you're
young, and you're hard and fast. Only years can give a mind
_tone_--mitigate the varnish of education. I gather from this
letter--and your face--that you are one of the party that participated
in that little affair at Lagune's."

He stuck out a finger at a point he had just seen. "By-the-bye!--That
accounts for Ethel," he said.

Ethel rapped down the mustard on the table. "It does," she said, but
not very loudly.

"But you had met before?" said Chaffery.

"At Whortley," said Lewisham.

"I see," said Chaffery.

"I was in--I was one of those who arranged the exposure," said
Lewisham. "And now you have raised the matter, I am bound to say--"

"I knew," interrupted Chaffery. "But what a shock that was for
Lagune!" He looked down at his toes for a moment with the corners of
his mouth tucked in. "The hand dodge wasn't bad, you know," he said,
with a queer sidelong smile.

Lewisham was very busy for a moment trying to get this remark in
focus. "I don't see it in the same light as you do," he explained at
last.

"Can't get away from your moral bias, eh?--Well, well. We'll go into
all that. But apart from its moral merits--simply as an artistic
trick--it was not bad."

"I don't know much about tricks--"

"So few who undertake exposures do. You admit you never heard or
thought of that before--the bladder, I mean. Yet it's as obvious as
tintacks that a medium who's hampered at his hands will do all he can
with his teeth, and what _could_ be so self-evident as a bladder under
one's lappel? What could be? Yet I know psychic literature pretty
well, and it's never been suggested even! Never. It's a perpetual
surprise to me how many things are _not_ thought of by investigators.
For one thing, they never count the odds against them, and that puts
them wrong at the start. Look at it! I am by nature tricky. I spend
all my leisure standing or sitting about and thinking up or practising
new little tricks, because it amuses me immensely to do so. The whole
thing amuses me. Well--what is the result of these meditations? Take
one thing:--I know eight-and-forty ways of making raps--of which at
least ten are original. Ten original ways of making raps." His manner
was very impressive. "And some of them simply tremendous raps. There!"

A confirmatory rap exploded--as it seemed between Lewisham and
Chaffery.

"_Eh?_" said Chaffery.

The mantelpiece opened a dropping fire, and the