"Honour among thieves?" he said. "Unfortunately I'm honest, so you must have no truck with me. Never mind. D'you touch cards at all? Or only at Epsom?" Beneath the green mask the mouth tightened, and I could see that the taunt had gone home. No man likes to be whipped before his underlings. Nobby profited by the master's silence, and had devoured two more chocolates before Berry spoke again--this time to me. "Gentleman seems annoyed," he remarked. "I do hope he hasn't misconstrued anything I've said. D'you think we ought to offer him breakfast? Of course, five is rather a lot, but I dare say one of them is a vegetarian, and you can pretend you don't care for haddock. Or they may have some tripe downstairs. You never know. And afterwards we could run them back to Limehouse. By the way, I wonder if I ought to tell him about the silver which-not. It's only nickel, but I don't want to keep anything back. Oh, and what about the dividend warrant? Of course it wants riveting and--er--forging, and I don't think they'd recognize it, but he could try. If I die before he goes, ask him to leave his address; then, if he leaves anything behind, the butler can send it on. I remember I left a pair of bed-socks once at Chatsworth. The Duke never sent them on, but then they were perishable. Besides, one of them followed me as far as Leicester. Instinct, you know. I wrote to _The Field_ about it." He paused to shift uneasily in his seat. "You know, if I have to sustain this pose much longer, I shall get railway spine or a hare lip or something." "Hush," said I. "What did Alfred Austin say in 1895?" "I know," said Berry. "'Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn.' Precisely. But then all his best work was admittedly done under the eiderdown." The clock upon the wall was chiming the hour. Two o'clock. Would Jonah never come? I fancy the same query renewed its hammering at Berry's brain, for, after a moment's reflection, he turned to the master. "I don't wish to presume upon your courtesy," he said, "but will the executive portion of your night's work finish when that remaining treasure has been bestowed?" "So far as you are concerned." "Oh, another appointment! Of course, this 'summer time' stunt gives you another hour, doesn't it? Well, I must wish you a warmer welcome." "That were impossible," was the bland reply "Once or twice, I must confess, I thought you a little--er, equivocal, but let that pass. I only regret that Mrs. Pleydell, particularly, should have been so much inconvenienced." "Don't mention it," said Berry. "As a matter of fact, we're all very pleased to have met you. You have interested us more than I can say, with true chivalry you have abstained from murder and mutilation, and you have suffered me to blow my nose, when a less courteous visitor would have obliged me to sniff with desperate and painful regularity for nearly half an hour. Can generosity go further?"