in.

"At any rate," said Hamilton, "you know enough about the City to tell
me this--is there any chance of my getting this money back?"

Bones rose jerkily.

"Ham," he said, and Hamilton sensed a tremendous sincerity in his
voice, "that money's going to come back to you, or the name of Augustus
Tibbetts goes down in the jolly old records as a failure."

A minute later Captain Hamilton found himself hand-shook from the room.
Here for Bones was a great occasion. With both elbows on the desk, and
two hands searching his hair, he sat worrying out what he afterwards
admitted was the most difficult problem that ever confronted him.

After half an hour's hair-pulling he went slowly across his beautiful
room and knocked discreetly on the door of the outer office.

Miss Marguerite Whitland had long since grown weary of begging him to
drop this practice. She found it a simple matter to say "Come in!" and
Bones entered, closing the door behind him, and stood in a deferential
attitude two paces from the closed door.

"Young miss," he said quietly, "may I consult you?"

"You may even consult me," she said as gravely.

"It is a very curious problem, dear old Marguerite," said Bones in a
low, hushed tone. "It concerns the future of my very dearest
friend--the very dearest friend in all the world," he said
emphatically, "of the male sex," he added hastily. "Of course,
friendships between jolly old officers are on a different plane, if you
understand me, to friendships between--I mean to say, dear old thing,
I'm not being personal or drawing comparisons, because the feeling I
have for you----"

Here his eloquence ran dry. She knew him now well enough to be neither
confused nor annoyed nor alarmed when Bones broke forth into an
exposition of his private feelings. Very calmly she returned the
conversation to the rails.

"It is a matter which concerns a very dear friend of yours," she said
suggestively, and Bones nodded and beamed.

"Of course you guessed that," he said admiringly. "You're the jolliest
old typewriter that ever lived! I don't suppose any other young woman
in London would have----"

"Oh, yes, they would," she said. "You'd already told me. I suppose
that you've forgotten it."

"Well, to cut a long story short, dear old Miss Marguerite," said
Bones, leaning confidentially on the table and talking down into her
upturned lace, "I must find the whereabouts of a certain rascal or
rascals, trading or mas