e, neat, crisp hundred-pound notes, and go away
vid you, do!"

"I will have my bond, sir, or nothing," I said; and I put on an attitude
of resolution which I confess surprised even myself.

"Wery vell," he shrieked, with many oaths, "then you shall have
noting--ha, ha, ha!--noting but a policeman! Mr. Abednego, call a
policeman! Take that, you humbug and impostor!" and here, with an
abundance of frightful language which I dare not repeat, the wealthy
banker abused and defied me.

Au bout du compte, what was I to do, if a banker did not choose to
honor a cheque drawn by his dead grandmother? I began to wish I had my
snuff-box back. I began to think I was a fool for changing that little
old-fashioned gold for this slip of strange paper.

Meanwhile the banker had passed from his fit of anger to a paroxysm of
despair. He seemed to be addressing some person invisible, but in the
room: "Look here, ma'am, you've really been coming it too strong. A
hundred thousand in six months, and now a thousand more! The 'ouse can't
stand it; it WON'T stand it, I say! What? Oh! mercy, mercy!"

As he uttered these words, A Hand fluttered over the table in the air!
It was a female hand: that which I had seen the night before. That
female hand took a pen from the green baize table, dipped it in a
silver inkstand, and wrote on a quarter of a sheet of foolscap on the
blotting-book, "How about the diamond robbery? If you do not pay, I will
tell him where they are."

What diamonds? what robbery? what was this mystery? That will never
be ascertained, for the wretched man's demeanor instantly changed.
"Certainly, sir;--oh, certainly," he said, forcing a grin. "How will you
have the money, sir? All right, Mr. Abednego. This way out."

"I hope I shall often see you again," I said; on which I own poor
Manasseh gave a dreadful grin, and shot back into his parlor.

I ran home, clutching the ten delicious, crisp hundred pounds, and the
dear little fifty which made up the account. I flew through the streets
again. I got to my chambers. I bolted the outer doors. I sank back in my
great chair, and slept. . . .

My first thing on waking was to feel for my money. Perdition! Where was
I? Ha!--on the table before me was my grandmother's snuff-box, and by
its side one of those awful--those admirable--sensation novels, which I
had been reading, and which are full of delicious wonder.

But that the guillotine is still to be seen at Mr. Gale's, No. 47, Hi