Then it is probable that his journalistic enterprises—which necessarily became somewhat more intermittent after his acceptance of the secretaryship—brought him in, on the average, another £400 a year. On this income he set seriously to work to make himself a miser. His tastes had always been simple—and excellent health may have been at once the cause and the effect of his abstemiousness; but now the meagre fare he allowed himself, and his rigidly economical habits in every way, had a very definite aim in view. He was saving money; he was building up a miniature fortune—by half-crowns and pence. Food and drink cost him next to nothing; if he smoked at all, it was a pipe the last thing in the morning before going to bed. Omnibusses served his turn unless some urgent business on behalf of his chief demanded a hansom. He could not give up his club; for that was in a way a political institution; and oftentimes he had to rush up thither to find someone who was not in the precincts of St. Stephen’s; but then, on the other hand, in a good club things are much cheaper than in any restaurant or in the members’ dining-room of the House of Commons. It was remarkable how the little fortune accumulated; and it was a kind of amusement in a fashion. He pinched himself—and laughed. He debated moral questions—for example as to whether it was lawful to use club-stationery in writing articles for newspapers; but he knew something of the ways of Government offices, and perhaps his conscience was salved by evil example. What the manager of the Westminster Palace Hotel thought of his manner of living can be imagined—if so august an official cared to enquire into such details. His solitary room, breakfast, and washing: no more: those were small bills that he called for week by week. And so his little hoard of capital gradually augmented—very gradually, it is true, but surely, as the rate of interest on deposits rose and fell. In the meanwhile Lord Musselburgh had not been very successful in his endeavours to bring about a reconciliation between Vin Harris and his family; nor had he been able to obtain the information that Vincent demanded. "You see, Vin," he said (they were again walking up and down the lamp-lit Terrace, by the side of the deep-flowing river), "my wife is awfully upset over this affair. She thinks it is entirely owing to her mismanagement. She would never have told you about the £5,000 if she had not been certain that that would be conclusive proof to you of the character of those two people; and now that she sees what has come of her telling you so much, she is afraid to tell you any more. Not that I suppose there is much to tell. Mr. Bethune and Miss Bethune are no longer in this country; but I doubt whether any one can say precisely where they are——"