r. Lott. I'm--well, the fact is, I was going to call upon
Mr. Bowles.'

'Oh, you were!' exclaimed the timber-merchant, with gruffness, which
referred not to his friend but to his son-in-law. 'I don't particularly
want to see _him_, but I had thought of seeing my daughter. You wouldn't
mind saying whether it was John Roper--?'

'Yes, it was.'

'Then we've both heard the same story, no doubt.'

Mr. Lott leaned back and stared out of the window. He kept thrusting out
his lips and drawing them in again, at the same time wrinkling his forehead
into the frown which signified that he was trying to shape a thought.

'Mr. Lott,' resumed the tailor, with a gravely troubled look, 'may I ask if
John Roper made any mention of my son?'

The timber-merchant glared, and Mr. Daffy, interpreting the look as one of
anger, trembled under it.

'I feel ashamed and miserable!' burst from his lips.

'It's not your fault, Mr. Daffy,' interrupted the other in a good-natured
growl. 'You're not responsible, no more than for any stranger.'

'That's just what I can't feel,' exclaimed the tailor, nervously slapping
his knee. 'Anyway, it would be a disgrace to a man to have a son a
bookmaker--a blackguard bookmaker. That's bad enough. But when it comes to
robbing and ruining the friends of your own family--why, I never heard a
more disgraceful thing in my life. How I'm going to stand in my shop, and
hold up my head before my customers, I--do--not--know. Of course, it'll be
the talk of the town; we know what the Ropers are when they get hold of
anything. It'll drive me off my head, Mr. Lott, I'm sure it will.'

The timber-merchant stretched out a great hand, and laid it gently on the
excited man's shoulder.

'Don't worry; that never did any good yet. We've got to find out, first of
all, how much of Roper's story is true. What did he tell you?'

'He said that Mr. Bowles had been going down the hill for a year or
more--that his business was neglected, that he spent his time at
racecourses and in public-houses--and that the cause of it all was my son.
_My son?_ What had my son to do with it? Why, didn't I know that Charles
was a racing and betting man, and a notorious bookmaker? You can imagine
what sort of a feeling that gave me. Roper couldn't believe it was the
first I had heard of it; he said lots of people in the town knew how
Charles was living. Did _you_ know, Mr. Lott?'

'Not I; I'm not much in the way of gossip.'

'Well, there's w