"You see," I amplified, while the devil in me frisked, "leaving my reputation out of the question, it's beastly inconvenient. For instance, I'm badly in need of some shorthand practice, and I certainly don't intend to go up these stairs again until I'm rehabilitated." He leaped at the chance of a reparation that would cost him little. "Oh, that's easy," he said. "Of course your own place--I mean, why not use mine, as you used to?" "Oh," I objected, "I can't very well use your place when you're not there." "I'm going to be there most of the time now," he replied. "Perhaps you think I'm off on the skite again, but I'm not." ("The Devil was sick," thought I again.) "I'm dead off all that now--straight. I do wish you'd come!" "But," I said (while that imp in me positively capered), "you'll be awfully busy--with other things. I hear you're to be married at once----" "Not too busy for that, old man," he assured me. "Do come!" "Well, I'll see," I promised. Half-an-hour later I was sitting in the British Museum reading-room with a stock of books on Medical Jurisprudence before me. Those two spirits within me were whispering again--plotting, machinating, discussing common ground of action. I had not yet resolved to take any action; but I had resolved, and firmly, that if action was to be taken I myself was not going to be caught unawares. V It was true that Archie was busy. His "skite" had cost him a good deal of money, and he intended to make good some of the loss by economising on his marriage. With this end in view he had determined that his honeymoon and his summer holiday should be run into one, and had fixed, or Evie had fixed for him, a day towards the end of August for his wedding. He was going to Jersey, for the sake of the breath of the sea (I fancy that in this he was following Store Street advice); and he intended on his return to go into rooms until he should have had time to look round for a house. His personal preparations were extensive. Ten porters and carmen a day called at the house near the Foundling Hospital, delivering purchases, and his upper floor was heaped up with bags, boxes, drawers taken from their cases and laid upon the floor, brown paper, cardboard boxes, new clothing. And one day--I won't set down the date--he lost his latchkey in the muddle. He did not know that he lost it as a result of my own close studies in the reading-room of the British Museum. "Can't find the blessed thing anywhere!" he grumbled. "I took it off the bunch to slip into the pocket of my evening waistcoat--you can't carry a bunch of keys about in your evening clothes--and I can't think where the devil I put it!... Well, I shall have to ask Jane for another."