"You're surprised to see me, Mr. Yeldham," said Thacker, as, after a quick survey of the apartment, he sat himself calmly down in a chair by Yeldham's desk. "Well--if you ask the question--yes," said Charley with perfect coolness. "And not too well pleased, perhaps?" "I should have left you to say that, in any case, Mr. Thacker. I presume you come to me on business. Have the goodness to explain its nature." Charley Yeldham had not been gifted by nature with great powers of making himself disagreeable, but on this occasion he exerted all he possessed. "I always heard you were a cool hand, Mr. Yeldham," said Thacker, in admiration, "and I find they did not say a bit too much. You don't mind my smoking a cigar, do you, while I stop?" "Not in the least," replied Mr. Yeldham, with immovable gravity, "if you find smoking conducive to the despatch of business." Mr. Thacker looked at him with an unmoved expression of countenance, and Yeldham began to experience a strong inclination to kick him. He restrained it, however, and kept his seat and his countenance, while Mr. Thacker lighted a peculiarly fine cigar by the aid of a peculiarly fine light-box which hung from his prodigious watch-chain. "I allow all that," said Mr. Yeldham; "so, Mr. Thacker, fire away." "You wonder what brings me here," said Thacker, settling himself into his chair; "but you'll wonder a great deal more when I tell you. I suppose you think I'm not particularly friendly to your friend Streightley, eh?" "I didn't think about it one way or the other," said the imperturbable Yeldham. "But you knew that I held the mortgages on most part of his property--that place down in the country where the Freres are living, and his town-house--you knew I held those, and that it was I who mainly helped to sell him up?" "Yes, I knew that; but as I also knew that gentlemen in your profession were men of business, and not usually swayed by sentiment, I did not see much to wonder at in the proceeding. I imagine any one else would have done the same." "You're complimentary to what you call my profession--you are, by George! but that's neither here nor there. Suppose--I only say suppose--that I've had little or nothing to do with any of Streightley's money transactions; that though I've conducted them and carried them out; though he has had my cheques for the cash, and I've had his signature to the deeds--suppose all the time that I've not been acting for myself, but merely as agent to a third party, who wanted to lay their claws on R.S. What do you think of that? Ah! I thought I'd make you look interested at last." "This is true, Mr. Thacker? you're not romancing, or trying to trot me out in any way, are you?" "As true as that I'm sitting before you at this present moment." "Then I must ask why, having kept up the delusion so long, you come here now to disclose it? The motive requires a little elucidation, Mr. Thacker. It's not spontaneous penitence, I suppose?"