"Yes, Louise O'Donnel. You're quite sure you never heard it?" "So far as I remember, never." "Perhaps your memory is at fault; one never knows." He puffed at his cigar--or, rather, he puffed at my cigar. "I don't think I'll give you my address. I'll call for the handkerchief at yours. What is your address?" I hesitated. I was quite aware that to give him my address would be to commit a further act of folly. But, at the same time, I did not see how I could avoid giving it him without a row or worse. "My office is in Austin Friars?" "Austin Friars? You don't happen to have a card about you?" I did happen to have one of my business cards in my letter-case. Taking it out, I gave it to him. He looked at it askance, reading the name on it out loud. "Thomas Tennant. Rather an alliterative kind of name. Almost like a pseudonym." I sat in silence. "However, there may be some one about with such a name." He slipped the card into his waistcoat pocket. "I shall have pleasure, Mr. Tennant, in calling on you, for my silk handkerchief, in Austin Friars; possibly to-morrow, possibly next week, or the week after--but that I shall call for it, sooner or later, you may rest assured." He looked at me with a grin. "Now that we have transacted that little piece of business, I don't think there is any necessity for me to inflict my company upon you any longer. I may as well get out." I was thankful for the prospect of a prompt deliverance. But I was not to be rid of him so easily, as his next words showed. He was drumming with his finger-tips on the front of the cab. "By the way, you were good enough to mention something about a deposit for my handkerchief. I think that, after all, I will trouble you for one." I advanced my hand towards my pocket. "With pleasure. If you have no objection, I will buy the handkerchief right out at a liberal price?" His reply was a sneer. "Thank you; I am obliged; the handkerchief is not for sale. I prize it too greatly--as a present from my late lamented greatgrandmother. But something on deposit I don't mind." "How much shall we say?" "Say--we'll say ten pounds." "Ten pounds!" I stared at him. The fellow's impudence was increasing. "You are jesting." He turned on me quite savagely--his black eyes glared. "Jesting? What do you mean by saying I am jesting?" "I shall certainly deposit with you no sum approaching ten pounds." He continued to regard me as if he were taking my measure. I met his glance unflinchingly. I wished him to understand that I was not quite the simpleton he seemed to take me for. I think he grasped something of my meaning. His tone became sullen. "Make it five pounds, then." "I am more likely to make it five shillings. However, under the peculiar circumstances, as I don't know what I should have done without your handkerchief, I don't mind going as far as half a sovereign, which is about four times its value."