This young gentleman's manner as he shook hands with the lawyer and then took a chair was on the surface cheerful and politely condescending. Yet after his first greeting, and when he was seated under Simon's inscrutable eye, there stole into his own a hint of quite another emotion. If ever an eye revealed apprehension it was Malcolm Cromarty's at that instant. "Well, Mr. Rattar, here I am again, you see," said he with a little laugh; but it was not quite a spontaneous laugh. "I see, Mr. Cromarty," said Simon laconically. "You have been expecting to hear from me before, I suppose," the young man went on, "but the fact is I've had an idea for a story and I've been devilish busy sketching it out." Simon grunted and gave a little nod. One would say that he was studying his visitor with exceptional attention. "Ideas come to one at the most inconvenient times," the young author explained with a smile, and yet with a certain hurried utterance not usually associated with smiles, "one just has to shoot the bird when he happens to come over your head, don't you know, you can't send in beaters after that kind of fowl, Mr. Rattar. And when he does come out, there you are! You have to make hay while the sun shines." Again the lawyer nodded, and again he made no remark. The apprehension in his visitor's eye increased, his smile died away, and suddenly he exclaimed: "For God's sake, Mr. Rattar, say something! I meant honestly to pay you back--I felt sure I could sell that last thing of mine before now, but not a word yet from the editor I sent it to!" Still there came only a guarded grunt from Simon and the young man went on with increasing agitation. "You won't give me away to Sir Reginald, will you? He's been damned crusty with me lately about money matters, as it is. If you make me desperate----!" He broke off and gazed dramatically into space for a moment, and then less dramatically at his lawyer. Silent Simon was proverbially cautious, but it seemed to his visitor that his demeanour this morning exceeded all reasonable limits. For nearly a minute he answered absolutely nothing, and then he said very slowly and deliberately: "I think it would be better, Mr. Cromarty, if you gave me a brief, explicit statement of how you got into this mess." "Dash it, you know too well--" began Cromarty. "It would make you realise your own position more clearly," interrupted the lawyer. "You want me to assist you, I take it?" "Rather--if you will!" "Well then, please do as I ask you. You had better start at the beginning of your relations with Sir Reginald." Malcolm Cromarty's face expressed surprise, but the lawyer's was distinctly less severe, and he began readily enough: "Well, of course, as you know, my cousin Charles Cromarty died about 18 months ago and I became the heir to the baronetcy--" he broke off and asked, "Do you mean you want me to go over all that?" Simon nodded, and he went on: