At the mention of the magical word Nobby had leapt from my unready grasp and trotted across to the fireplace. There, to my disgust and vexation, he fixed the master with an expectant stare, and then sat up upon his hindquarters and begged a sweatmeat. His favourer began to heave with merriment. "What an engaging scrap!" he wheezed, taking a chocolate from an occasional table upon which the contents of a dessert dish had apparently been emptied. "Here, my little apostate.... Well caught!" With an irrational rapidity the Sealyham disposed of the first comfit he had been given for more than six months. Then he resumed the attractive posture which he had found so profitable. Lazily his patron continued to respond.... Resentfully I watched the procedure, endeavouring to console myself with the reflection that in a few hours Nature would assuredly administer to the backslider a more terrible and appropriate correction than any that I could devise. Would Jonah never come? I stole a glance at the clock. Five and twenty minutes to two. And when he did come, what then? Were he and Harry to blunder into the slough waist-high, as we had done? Impossible. There was probably a man outside--possibly a car, which would set them thinking. Then, even if the brutes got away, their game would be spoiled. It wouldn't be such a humiliating walk-over. Oh, why had Daphne come down? Her presence put any attempt at action out of the question. And why.... A taxi slowed for a distant corner and turned into the street. For a moment it seemed to falter. Then its speed was changed clumsily, and it began to grind its way in our direction. My heart began to beat violently. Again the speed was changed, and the rising snarl choked to give way to a metallic murmur, which was rapidly approaching. I could hardly breathe.... Then the noise swelled up, hung for an instant upon the very crest of earshot, only to sink abruptly as the cab swept past, taking our hopes with it. Two-thirds of the silver had disappeared. Berry cleared his throat. "You know," he said, "this is an education. In my innocence I thought that a burglar shoved his swag in a sack and then pushed off, and did the rest in the back parlour of a beer-house in Notting Dale. As it is, my only wonder is that you didn't bring a brazier and a couple of melting-pots." "Not my job," was the reply. "I'm not a receiver. Besides, you don't think that all this beautiful silver is to be broken up?" The horror of his uplifted hands would have been more convincing if both of them had been empty. "Why, in a very little while, particularly if you travel, you will have every opportunity of buying It back again in open market." "But how comic," said Berry. "I should think you're a favourite at Lloyd's. D'you mind if I blow my nose? Or would that be a _casus belli_?" "Not at all"--urbanely. "Indeed, if you would care to give me your word...." Berry shook his head.