"Gentlemen," he said, "there's just one little thing: American business methods and English are different in one respect. In my country we've got a sort of official guide that tells us exactly whom we are dealing with and what their means are. Now I know you are good fellows and it seems to me I'll be glad to go into this little affair with you; but we are strangers financially, aren't we? Now if you were Americans I should say to you: 'What's your rating?' and you'd tell me, because you'd know that I could look it up in a business guide in ten minutes." "Perfectly sound," Mr. Harding admitted--"perfectly! Neither my partner nor I have anything to conceal. Last Christmas we were worth just over sixty thousand pounds and since then we've made a bit." "You've no other partner?" Mr. Bundercombe inquired. "Certainly not!" Mr. Harding replied. "Then what about our friend Stanley?" Mr. Bundercombe asked quietly. Almost as he spoke Stanley walked into the middle of the little group. I have never in the whole course of my life seen two men so thoroughly and entirely amazed. Mr. Harding dropped his cigar on the carpet, where he let it remain. They stared at Stanley as though they were looking upon a ghost. Both men seemed somehow to have lost their confident bearing-- seemed to have shrunken into smaller, less assertive, meaner beings. "Sixty thousand pounds," Mr. Bundercombe went on--"one-third of which belongs to Stanley here." "Absurd!" Harding faltered. "Nothing--nothing of the sort!" Densmore declared. Mr. Bundercombe very carefully lit another cigar. Then he rang the bell. Harding rose to his feet. He was not looking in the least like the sleek, opulent gentleman who had entered the room a few minutes before. "What's that for?" he demanded, pointing to the bell. The door was already opened. Mr. Bundercombe indicated the young lady who stood upon the threshold--the lady with whom he had been lunching that day at Prince's. "I only wished to have the pleasure," Mr. Bundercombe explained, "of presenting you two gentlemen--Mr. Harding especially--to this young lady." "Blanche!" Mr. Harding exclaimed. Mr. Densmore muttered something under his breath. "My dear Miss Blanche," said Mr. Bundercombe, moving toward the door, "I will not ask you to stay, as our interview is scarcely, perhaps, a pleasant one. I simply wished you to show yourself so that Mr. Harding and his friend might understand how useless certain denials on their part would be. My servant will now place you in a taxi; and if you will do me the honor of calling here at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning I think I can promise you a satisfactory termination to this little affair." The girl patted him on the shoulder. "That's all right, Bundy!" she declared. "I hope you'll take me out to lunch again! As for him," she added, her eyebrows coming together and looking toward Harding, "perhaps he'll understand now how well it pays to be a liar!"