In thus making his calculations, there was, however, one point which, to give Pod his due, had altogether escaped his notice. So long as the broken window remained unmended, the privacy of Kelvin's office was altogether gone. Pod had only to put his ear to the fractured pane in order to hear every word that was spoken in the other room. There was nothing but the curtain between him and the speakers. Pod, as a rule, would not have thought it worth his while to listen--would not have condescended to listen; but happening one day accidentally to overhear a few words of a certain conversation, he was induced to listen more attentively, and the result was that he quietly reached his pencil and notebook and took down the whole of the conversation in shorthand. "If I don't spoil their little game, my name's not Pod Piper!" he said to himself with an air of energy as he shut up his notebook. "The pair of cowardly vipers!" The conversation stenographed by Mr. Piper, and denounced by him in such emphatic terms, was that which took place between Olive Deane and Gerald Warburton on the forenoon of the day following the visit of the latter to Kelvin's house. When Gerald called at eleven o'clock he was told that the lawyer had been suddenly summoned away, but that Miss Deane was desirous of speaking to him. Inwardly wondering what Miss Deane could have to say to him, he sat down, but was not kept long waiting. Pod went to tell her that Mr. Pomeroy was there, and Olive came at once. "My cousin has been called from home quite unexpectedly," she said; "and he asked me to see you in his stead." "He could not have chosen a----" "No compliments, if you please, Mr. Pomeroy. I think that neither you nor I care greatly for that sort of thing. Besides, I am here to discuss a matter of business with you. Pray pardon the question, but are my cousin and I right in assuming that if some situation could be found for you, the duties of which would not be onerous, which would bring you into contact with 'good' people, and which might open up for you a channel to something far better in the future, you would not be unwilling, after due consideration, to accept it?" Gerald hesitated. With the knowledge that ten thousand pounds would fall into his pocket in the course of a few days, he might well pause before answering such a question. "Really, Miss Deane, you quite take me by surprise. I have led a vagabond existence for so many years, that the idea of a situation of any kind that would at all cramp that freedom of action to which I have been so long used, and which has become so sweet to me, could not but be somewhat distasteful. Still, if I ever do intend to settle down into a respectable member of the community, it is quite time I began to think of doing so, and the picture just drawn by you is not without its allurements. You will not therefore, I hope, think me presumptuous if I ask you to favour me with a few more particulars."