If a letter for Jeanes should be forwarded on to Professor Lawrance’s rooms from Cotley, that letter it would be my business, by hook or by crook, to abstract. But to do this without attracting suspicion, it would be necessary to have a dummy letter with which to replace it, and the dummy would have to bear the Cotley postmark, and be directed in a hand as much resembling the handwriting on the original letter as possible. How to arrange all this had puzzled me at first, for though I did not anticipate any difficulty in hitting upon a pretext by which to obtain a specimen of the Cotley barber’s handwriting, or in imitating that handwriting when obtained, I could not see how to get over the difficulty of the postmark. A postmark is not an easy thing to forge without specially prepared tools, and until the idea occurred to me of posting at Cotley a letter addressed in pencil to myself at Stanby, and then rubbing out the address and re-addressing it to Jeanes, I was rather at a loss to know how to effect my purpose. However, the difficulty was now satisfactorily surmounted, and armed with my dummy letters I set out to make the acquaintance of Professor Lawrance. He was an extremely unprepossessing, not to say villainous-looking man, and regarded me with what I could not help thinking was a suspicious eye when I entered. I submitted to be shaved and shampooed, both of which operations he performed badly, though he regaled me meanwhile with his views in regard to the winner of the Derby, and also of a prize-fight which was coming off that day. “By-the-bye,” I said, as I was drawing on my gloves, “can one have letters addressed here?” “No,” he replied shortly, “yer can’t. It don’t pay--on the usual terms.” “I know that,” I said, “or I shouldn’t have asked you. But I’m willing to pay special terms.” “Is it ’orses?” he inquired gruffly. “Yes, horses,” I said, taking up the cue which he had given me; “but it’s a fool’s game, and I’ve lost a lot of money over it already.” “Ah!” with a grin. “And yer’ve got a hintroduction, of course. I don’t take on customers of that sort without a hintroduction. It ain’t safe.” The affair was panning out beyond my reckoning, but from what had transpired I felt sure that I should be safe in assuming he was more of a betting agent than a barber, and that the wisest thing for me to do would be, by bluffing boldly, to lead him to suppose I knew all about him; so I nodded assent as airily as possible, and as if his question had been a mere matter of course. “Who is it?” he asked point blank. “Morrison,” I replied, without a moment’s hesitation--“Henry Morrison, of Doncaster. You recollect him--tall man, clean-shaven and small eyes. Wears a fawn coat and a brown billycock. He said any money I put on with you would be quite safe.” The barber nodded. “Like as not, though I don’t rekerllect him from yer description. Well, wot d’yer want me to back?”