"I don't as a rule," said Jasper, with a dry smile. "Will you slip that bolt into the door?" The captain, greatly enjoying anything in the shape of an irregularity, did as he was bidden, and the two sat and sipped their wine, and Jasper threw off his dry business air and chatted about things in general until Scrivell knocked. Jasper opened the door for him and took an envelope from his hand and carried it to the desk. "Well?" said the captain, eagerly. "All right," said Jasper, holding up the bill. The captain drew a long breath of relief. "I feel as if I had done it myself," he said, with a laugh. "Poor young beggar, he'll be glad to know he's to get off scot free." "Ah!" said Jasper. "By-the-way, hadn't you better drop him a line?" "Right," exclaimed the captain, eagerly; "that's a good idea. May I write it here?" Jasper pushed a sheet of plain paper before him and an envelope. "Don't date it from here," he said; "date it from your lodgings. You don't want him to know that anybody else knows anything about it, of course." "Of course not! How thoughtful you are. That's the best of a lawyer--always keeps his head cool," and he drew up a chair, and wrote not in the best of hands or the best of spelling: "Dear Mr. Etheridge--I've got--you know what. It is all right. Nothing more need be said. Be a good boy for the future." "Yours truly, "HARRY HALLIDAY." "How's that?" he asked, handing the note to Jasper. Jasper looked up; he was bending over his desk, apparently writing a letter, and looked up with an absent expression. "Eh?" he said. "Oh, yes; that will do. Stop though, to set his mind quite at rest, better say that you have destroyed it--as you have, see!" and he took the envelope and held it over the taper until it burnt down nearly to his finger, dropping the remaining fragment on the desk and allowing it to turn and smolder away. The captain added the line to that effect. "Now your man can run with it, if you'll be so good." Jasper smiled. "No," he said. "I think not. I'll send a commissionaire." He rang the bell and took up the letter. "Send this by the commissionaire," he said. "There is no answer. Tell him to give it in and come away." "And now I'm off," said the captain. "I'll let you have a check in a day or two, Adelstone, and I'm very much obliged to you." "All right," said Jasper, with a slightly absent air as if his mind was already engaged with other matters. "No hurry; whenever it's convenient. Good-bye!" He went back to his desk before the captain had left the room, and bent over his letter, but as the departing footsteps died away, he sprang up, locked the door, and drawing a slip of paper from under his blotting pad, held it before him with both hands and looked down at it with a smile of eager triumph.