He threw the window, open with great zeal--with prodigious zeal; for, he wanted to deceive himself as well as Skinner. With equal parade he helped carry Dodd to the window; it opened, on the ground: this done, the self-deceivers put their heads together, and soon managed matters so that two porters, known to Skinner, were introduced into the garden, and informed that a gentleman had fallen down in a fit, and they were to take him home to his friends, and not talk about it: there might be an inquest, and that was so disagreeable to a gentleman like Mr. Hardie. The men agreed at once for a sovereign apiece. It was all done in a great hurry and agitation, and while Skinner accompanied the men to see that they did not blab, Mr. Hardie went into the garden to breathe and think. But he could do neither. He must have a look at It. He stole back, opened the safe, and examined the notes and bills. He fingered them. They seemed to grow to his finger. He lusted after them. He said to himself, “The matter has gone too far to stop; I _must_ go on borrowing this money of the Dodds, and make it the basis of a large fortune: it will be best for all parties in the end.” He put It into his pocket-book; that pocket-book into his breast-pocket; and passed by his private door into the house, and to his dressing-room. Ten minutes later he left the house with a little black bag in his band. CHAPTER XX “WHAT will ye give me, and I'll tell ye?” said Maxley to Alfred Hardie. “Five pounds.” “That is too much.” “Five shillings, then.” “That is too little. Lookee here; your garden owes me thirty shillings for work: suppose you pays me, and that will save me from going to your Dad for it.” Alfred consented readily, and paid the money. Then Maxley told him it was Captain Dodd he had been talking with. “I thought so! I thought so!” cried Alfred joyfully, “but I was afraid to believe it: it was too delightful. Maxley, you're a trump you don't know what anxiety you have relieved me of. Some fool has gone and reported the _Agia_ wrecked; look here!” and he showed him his Lloyd's. “Luckily it has only just come, so I haven't been miserable long.”