elatine, and in recognition of
this fact a check for five hundred pounds would be forwarded to him in
due course.

* * * * *

Roland's first feeling was one of pure bewilderment. As far as he
could recollect, he had never had any dealings whatsoever with these
open-handed gentlemen. Then memory opened her flood-gates and swept him
back to a morning ages ago, so it seemed to him, when Mr. Fineberg's
eldest son Ralph, passing through the office on his way to borrow money
from his father, had offered him for ten shillings down a piece of
cardboard, at the same time saying something about a sweep. Partly
from a vague desire to keep in with the Fineberg clan, but principally
because it struck him as rather a doggish thing to do, Roland had passed
over the ten shillings; and there, as far as he had known, the matter
had ended.

And now, after all this time, that simple action had borne fruit in the
shape of Gelatine and a check for five hundred pounds.

Roland's next emotion was triumph. The sudden entry of checks for five
hundred pounds into a man's life is apt to produce this result.

For the space of some minutes he gloated; and then reaction set in. Five
hundred pounds meant marriage with Muriel.

His brain worked quickly. He must conceal this thing. With trembling
fingers he felt for his match-box, struck a match, and burnt the
telegram to ashes. Then, feeling a little better, he sat down to think
the whole matter over. His meditations brought a certain amount of balm.
After all, he felt, the thing could quite easily be kept a secret. He
would receive the check in due course, as stated, and he would bicycle
over to the neighboring town of Lexingham and start a bank-account with
it. Nobody would know, and life would go on as before.

He went to bed, and slept peacefully.

* * * * *

It was about a week after this that he was roused out of a deep sleep
at eight o'clock in the morning to find his room full of Coppins. Mr.
Coppin was there in a nightshirt and his official trousers. Mrs.
Coppin was there, weeping softly in a brown dressing-gown. Modesty had
apparently kept Muriel from the gathering, but brothers Frank and Percy
stood at his bedside, shaking him by the shoulders and shouting. Mr.
Coppin thrust a newspaper at him, as he sat up blinking.

These epic moments are best related swiftly. Roland took the paper, and
the first thing that met his s