ge, I have run
back to London, and promptly come out again. I had business to
transact there, indeed, which I have now completed; the excessive
attentions of the English police sent me once more, like great
Orion, "sloping slowly to the west." I returned to America in order
to see whether or not you were still impenitent. On the day of my
arrival I happened to meet Senator Wrengold, and accepted his kind
invitation solely that I might see how far my last communication
had had a proper effect upon you. As I found you quite obdurate,
and as you furthermore persisted in misunderstanding my motives, I
determined to read you one more small lesson. It nearly failed; and
I confess the accident has affected my nerves a little. I am now
about to retire from business altogether, and settle down for life
at my place in Surrey. I mean to try just one more small coup; and,
when that is finished, Colonel Clay will hang up his sword, like
Cincinnatus, and take to farming. You need no longer fear me. I have
realised enough to secure me for life a modest competence; and as
I am not possessed like yourself with an immoderate greed of gain,
I recognise that good citizenship demands of me now an early
retirement in favour of some younger and more deserving rascal. I
shall always look back with pleasure upon our agreeable adventures
together; and as you hold my dust-coat, together with a ring and
letter to which I attach importance, I consider we are quits, and
I shall withdraw with dignity. Your sincere well-wisher, CUTHBERT
CLAY, Poet."

"Just like him!" Charles said, "to hold this one last coup over my
head in terrorem. Though even when he has played it, why should I
trust his word? A scamp like that may say it, of course, on purpose
to disarm me."

For my own part, I quite agreed with "Margot." When the Colonel was
reduced to dressing the part of a known personage I felt he had
reached almost his last card, and would be well advised to retire
into Surrey.

But the magazine editor summed up all in a word. "Don't believe
that nonsense about fortunes being made by industry and ability,"
he said. "In life, as at cards, two things go to produce
success--the first is chance; the second is cheating."

XI

THE EPISODE OF THE BERTILLON METHOD

We had a terrible passage home from New York. The Captain told us he
"knew every drop of water in the Atlantic personally"; and he had
never seen them so uniformly obstreperous. The shi