Sharp always was the word. Bertie had done some quick things in dressing before to-day, but never anything quite so quick as that. Mr. Rosenheim was sitting in the arm-chair, still fondling his revolver, eyeing Bertie with a most uncomfortable pair of eyes. When Bertie found that in his haste he was putting on his trousers hind side foremost Mr. Rosenheim gave a start. Bertie gave one too, a cold shiver went down his back, and the time in which he reversed the garment and got inside his breeches was perhaps the best on record. The dark man meanwhile was brushing his hat, putting on his overcoat, and apparently preparing himself for a journey. There was a Gladstone bag on the table. Into this he put several articles which he took from the chest of drawers. Bertie had completed his own costume for some little time before either spoke. It was Mr. Rosenheim who addressed him first. "Come here!" Bertie went with remarkable celerity. "For a doctor's son, my friend, you are not too well dressed, eh?" Bertie hung his head; he was conscious of the defects in his attire. The dark man flung him a clothes-brush. "Brush yourself, and make yourself presentable. There's a jug and basin behind that curtain; wash yourself and brush your hair." Bertie did as he was bid; never had he been so docile. It was the most uncomfortable toilet he had ever made. When he had carefully soaped his face all over, and was about to wash it off again, there was a report. A shot whistled through the air and buried itself in the wall about a foot above his head. He dropped as though it had struck him, and all but repeated his former swoon. "You can get up, my friend. It is only a little practice I am having." Bertie got up, but the pleasure of that wash was destroyed for him. Mr. Rosenheim's ideas of revolver practice were so peculiar that he was in momentary terror of his aiming at an imaginary bull's-eye in the centre of his back. "How long are you going to be? Come here and let me have a look at you." Though only half-dried, the soap-suds still remaining in the corners of his eyes, Bertie obeyed the dark man's order and stood in front of him. That gentleman still held the too-familiar revolver in his hand. It had long been the secret longing of Bertie's soul to possess one of his own; henceforward he would hate the sight of the too-agile arm for evermore. "You don't look like a doctor's son. Own up you lied." "I--I didn't, sir." "A pretty sort of doctor's son you look! Has your father any money?" A wild idea entered Bertie's brain. He remembered how Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins had risen to the bait. "Ye--yes, sir; he's very rich. He'd give a thousand pounds to get me back again." But this time the bait failed, and signally.