He nodded pleasantly and vanished. Quinney never saw him again. Nor did he see Major Archibald Fraser. Quinney paid the auctioneer with a cheque, and returned to London, after wiring the Major that the treasure was his. Three days later, not hearing a word from his client, he became slightly uneasy. His cheque had been cashed; the picture was in his possession. The abominable truth leaked out slowly. Major Archibald Fraser, of Loch Tarvie, had been impersonated by a _chevalier d’industrie_. The picture was worth, perhaps, forty pounds, and the frame another five-and-twenty! The pigeon from the country had been plucked. *III* The poor fellow sobbed out the facts to his Susan in a passion of self-abasement. The loss of the money was serious enough, but what ground him to powder was the fact that he had become the laughing-stock of the London dealers. Every man jack of them knew. He could not show his face in an auction room without provoking spasms of raucous laughter. The Dorchester auctioneer, called upon to prove his innocence (which he did), made the tale public. It was acclaimed as "copy" by scores of newspapers. And salt was rubbed into his wounds by the reporters whose sympathy seemed to lie with the two scoundrels who had devised so clever a scheme, and escaped with the swag! There was a cruel headline: "A Biter Bit." "Whom have I bit?" he demanded of Susan. The little woman mingled her tears with his, but no words of hers could assuage his misery or stem the torrent of self-accusation. "Nice sort of fool you’ve married! A mug of mugs! You was right. Ought to have remained in Melchester! Ought to have remained in swaddling clothes! Ought never to have been born!" He apostrophized Posy, now a child of ten. "Nice sort of father you’ve got! Look at him! Why didn’t you choose somebody else, hey? Picked a wrong’un, you did!" Posy lifted her young voice and wept with her parents. And then Susan, almost hysterical, said with unconscious humour: "Gracious! Isn’t this a rainy afternoon!" *IV* After a few days the sun shone again. Lord Mel, who had returned to England, called upon his former tenant, and listened with sympathy to the tale of thwackings. Quinney added details which he had kept from Susan. Fired by Tomlin, he had ventured into the Kaffir Market, where the bears had mauled him. His losses, fortunately, were inconsiderable; but once again he had been "downed" by Londoners. He was too proud to whine before Lord Mel, and from long habit he expressed himself whimsically. "Not fit to cross the road without a policeman. Time I advertised for a nurse or a keeper!" "Are you thinking of going back to Melchester?" At this Quinney exploded.