had worked more swindles with Morris than had any other partner, and
the third, and most talkative, was a gentleman named Seepidge, of
Seepidge & Soomes, printers to the trade.

Mr. Seepidge was a man of forty-five, with a well-used face. It was
one of those faces which look different from any other angle than that
from which it is originally seen. It may be said, too, that his
colouring was various. As he addressed Mr. Morris, it varied between
purple and blue. Mrs. Morris was in the habit of addressing her
husband by endearing titles. Mr. Seepidge was not addressing Mr.
Morris in a way which, by any stretch of imagination, could be
described as endearing.

"Wait a bit, Lew," pleaded Mr. Morris. "Don't let's quarrel.
Accidents will occur in the best of regulated families."

"Which you're not," said the explosive Mr. Seepidge, violently. "I
gave you two hundred to back Morning Glory in the three o'clock race.
You go down to Newbury with my money, and you come back and tell me,
after the horse has won, that you couldn't get a bookmaker to take the
bet!"

"And I give you the money back," replied Mr. Morris.

"You did," reported Mr. Seepidge meaningly, "and I was surprised to
find there wasn't a dud note in the parcel. No, Ike, you
double-crossed me. You backed the horse and took the winnings, and
come back to me with a cock-and-bull story about not being able to find
a bookmaker."

Mr. Morris turned a pained face to his companion.

"Jim," he said, addressing Mr. Webber, "did you ever in all your born
days hear a pal put it across another pal like that? After the work
we've done all these years together, me and Lew--why, you're like a
serpent in the bush, you are really!"

It was a long time, and there was much passing of glasses across a
lead-covered bar, before Mr. Seepidge could be pacified--the meeting
took place in the private bar of "The Bread and Cheese," Camden
Town--but presently he turned from the reproachful into the melancholy
stage, explained the bad condition of business, what with the paper
bills and wages bills he had to pay, and hinted ominously at bankruptcy.

In truth, the firm of Seepidge was in a bad way. The police had
recently raided the premises and nipped in the bud a very promising
order for five hundred thousand sweepstake tickets, which were being
printed surreptitiously, for Mr. Seepidge dealt in what is colloquially
known as "snide printing."

Whether Mr. Cresta Morris