one of the bushes in the
shadow. At the time I had thought nothing of it, so eager was I to meet
my friends. Yet now, in face of Ray's whispered words, I grew very
suspicious. Why had that man been lurking there?

When the cloth had been cleared and dessert laid, the elder of the two
servants placed upon the table before our host a big box of long
crackers covered with dark green gelatine and embellished with gold
paper.

"These are German bon-bons," remarked Griesbach, his grey eyes beaming
through his spectacles. "I get them each Christmas from my home in
Stuttgart."

The conversation had again turned upon the splendid investment about to
be offered to the British public, whereupon I half suggested that I was
ready to go into the affair myself. Griesbach jumped at the idea, just
as I expected, and handed round the box of crackers. Each of us took
one, in celebration of Christmas, and on their being pulled we
discovered small but really acceptable articles of masculine jewellery
within. My "surprise" was a pair of plain gold sleeve-links, worth fully
three or four pounds, while Ray, with whom I pulled, received a nice
turquoise scarf-pin, an incident which quite reassured him.

Our host refused to take one.

"No," he declared, "they are for you, my dear fellows--all for you."

So again the box was passed round, and four more crackers were taken.
That time Ray's bon-bon contained a tiny gold match-box, while within
mine I found a small charm in the form of a gold enamelled doll to hang
upon one's watch-chain.

As Ray and I pulled my cracker, I had suddenly raised my eyes and caught
sight of the expression upon the face of my friend Engler. It struck me
as very curious. His sallow cheeks were pale, and his dark eyes seemed
starting out of his head with excitement.

"Now, gentlemen," said our genial host, after he had passed the box for
the third time, first to his two compatriots, who handed the remaining
two bon-bons across the table to us, "you have each a final bon-bon. In
one of them there will be found a twenty-mark piece--our German custom.
I suggest, in order to mark this festive occasion, that whoever of you
four obtains the coin shall receive, free of any obligation, five shares
in our new syndicate."

"A most generous proposal!" declared my friend Engler, a sentiment with
which we all agreed.

The two Germans pulled their bon-bons, but were unsuccessful. The
prize--certainly a prize worth winning-