all fat and ugly."

He lowered his voice and was speaking in a fierce earnest monotone, as
though he was reciting some lesson he had been taught.

The clergyman took a pace back in alarm.

"Now, my good man," he said severely, "you ought not to stop gentlemen in
the street and talk that kind of nonsense. I have never met you before in
my life. My name is the Reverend Josiah Jennings."

"Your name is Milburgh," said the other. "Yes, that's it, Milburgh. _He_
used to talk about you! That lovely man--here!" He clutched the
clergyman's sleeve and Milburgh's face went a shade paler. There was a
concentrated fury in the grip on his arm and a strange wildness in the
man's speech. "Do you know where he is? In a beautivault built like an
'ouse in Highgate Cemetery. There's two little doors that open like the
door of a church, and you go down some steps to it."

"Who are you?" asked Milburgh, his teeth chattering.

"Don't you know me?" The little man peered at him. "You've heard him talk
about me. Sam Stay--why, I worked for two days in your Stores, I did. And
you--you've only got what _he's_ given you. Every penny you earned he
gave you, did Mr. Lyne. He was a friend to everybody--to the poor, even
to a hook like me."

His eyes filled with tears and Mr. Milburgh looked round to see if he was
being observed.

"Now, don't talk nonsense!" he said under his breath, "and listen, my
man; if anybody asks you whether you have seen Mr. Milburgh, you haven't,
you understand?"

"Oh, I understand," said the man. "But I knew you! There's nobody
connected with him that I don't remember. He lifted me up out of the
gutter, he did. He's my idea of God!"

They had reached a quiet corner of the Gardens and Milburgh motioned the
man to sit beside him on a garden seat.

For the first time that day he experienced a sense of confidence in the
wisdom of his choice of disguise. The sight of a clergyman speaking with
a seedy-looking man might excite comment, but not suspicion. After all,
it was the business of clergymen to talk to seedy-looking men, and they
might be seen engaged in the most earnest and confidential conversation
and he would suffer no loss of caste.

Sam Stay looked at the black coat and the white collar in doubt.

"How long have you been a clergyman, Mr. Milburgh?" he asked.

"Oh--er--for a little while," said Mr. Milburgh glibly, trying to
remember what he had heard about Sam Stay. But the little man saved him
the labo