"Um!" said Quinney, for the third time. Tomlin rose with alacrity considering his weight. "You think it over. Take your time." "Don’t like it!" growled the little man. "I call it a perfectly legitimate transaction." "Come off it, Tom!" "Are you thinkin’ o’ your inside or your outside? Yer skin or yer conscience? If it’s conscience——" "Well——?" "I’ll make this remark. One way and t’other I’ve paid you more than a thousand pounds for ’restoration’ work done by James Miggott during the past four years or more. Don’t forget that! So long!" Quinney heard him chuckling as he made his way downstairs. *III* He became a party to the projected fraud, but not without perturbations of spirit and rumblings of conscience. Ultimately he salved the latter with the soothing reflection that he was much more honest than Tomlin or Lark or Bundy. It is affirmed, with what truth I know not, that gluttons who happen to be total abstainers are peculiarly virulent against drunkards. Quinney, poor fellow, son of a dishonest father, dishonest himself during his earlier manhood, reflected joyously that he was an admirable husband and father. He said to Susan, who was in blissful ignorance of his dealings with Tom Tomlin: "Old Tomlin, hoary-headed sinner, went to Blackpool for the last week-end, and he didn’t go alone, nor with Mrs. T., neither. He’s a moral idiot is Tom. What would you say, Susie, if I went larkin’ off to Brighton with Mabel Dredge—hey?" He pinched her still blooming cheek, staring into her faithful eyes. Susan replied artlessly: "Joe, dear, it would break my heart." "Gosh, I believe it would. Well, mother, your loving heart won’t be broken that way." Susan knew that this was true, and smiled delightfully. "I’m a good hubby," said Quinney complacently, "and the very best of fathers, by Gum!" Whenever he "swanked" (we quote Posy) like this, Susan regarded him anxiously. James Miggott undertook his new job without protest, but there was an expression upon his handsome face which puzzled his employer. He summed up James as "downy." When he raised the young man’s salary to four pounds a week, that derisive smile of which mention has been made, played about James’s too thin lips. Quinney said sharply: "You don’t seem bustin’ with joy and gladness. Four quid a week ain’t to be sneezed at." "Don’t I earn it, sir?" His tone was perfectly respectful, with a faint sub-acid inflection. When the four chairs were turned into eight, and duly covered with the precious needlework, Tomlin and Quinney inspected them with huge satisfaction. Certainly James had done himself justice. The restorations were subjected to microscopic scrutiny. Tomlin smacked his gross lips. "You leave the rest to me," he said. *IV* The time has come to explain James’s smile. We must attempt what French dramatic critics term the "_scène obligatoire_." He had captured Posy.