orrow, my dear Soames! Why ever did you
not express the wish before? Certainly, certainly!"...

"Will it be sent to me?"

"My dear fellow! How absurd you are! Can you get out to-morrow evening
about nine o'clock?"

"Yes, easily."

"Then I will meet you at the corner of Victoria Street, by the hotel,
and hand you your first quarter's salary. Will that be satisfactory?"

"Perfectly," said Soames, his small eyes sparkling with avarice. "Most
decidedly, Mr. Gianapolis. Many thanks."...

"And by the way," continued the other, "it is rather fortunate that you
rang me up this evening, because it has saved me the trouble of ringing
you up."

"What?"--Soames' eyes half closed, from the bottom lids upwards:--"there
is something"...

"There is a trifling service which I require of you--yes, my dear
Soames."

"Is it?"...

"We will discuss the matter to-morrow evening. Oh! it is a mere trifle.
So good-by for the present."

Soames, with the fingers of his two hands interlocked before him, and
his thumbs twirling rapidly around one another, stood in the lobby,
gazing reflectively at the rug-strewn floor. He was working out in his
mind how handsomely this first payment would show up on the welcome
side of his passbook. Truly, he was fortunate in having met the generous
Gianapolis....

He thought of a trifling indiscretion committed at the expense of one
Mr. Mapleson, and of the wine-bill of Colonel Hewett; and he thought of
the apparently clairvoyant knowledge of the Greek. A cloud momentarily
came between his perceptive and the rosy horizon.

But nearer to the foreground of the mental picture, uprose a left-hand
page of his pass book; and its tidings of great joy, written in clerkly
hand, served to dispel the cloud.

Soames sighed in gentle rapture, and, soft-footed, passed into his own
room.

Certainly his duties were neither difficult nor unpleasant. The mistress
of the house lived apparently in a hazy dream-world of her own, and Mr.
Leroux was the ultimate expression of the non-commercial. Mr. Soames
could have robbed him every day had he desired to do so; but he had
refrained from availing himself even of those perquisites which he
considered justly his; for it was evident, to his limited intelligence,
that greater profit was to be gained by establishing himself in this
household than by weeding-out five shillings here, and half-a-sovereign
there, at the risk of untimely dismissal.

Yet--it was a struggle! A