"Ah! That's the style, laddie! You'll do!" said the Man of Mystery, bringing down a palm like a Westphalian ham on the wincing shoulder of the youth. "A few kind words on the discreet agent, eh? The Bosses'll note 'em down!" He dived into a pocket. "I've got a flask here!" he said, and winked in his turn. "What I call my good old prohibition! We'll drink to it, eh? To think of meeting the likes of you in a 'ouse like this!" This last remark wounded McTaggart's pride; but the Angel stood by him, and they that have angels at their side are firm. Mr. Collop's dress clothes lay beautifully aligned upon a couch, a shirt by the side of them; but the owner's brow clouded as he said: "Where the devil did I put that flask? Curse them slaveys! I do 'ate 'avin' things done for me on these toff jobs!" He buried his head in the large kit-bag which he had been assured was the proper receptacle or container to bring to the Palaces of the Rich. And even as he therein delved and groped, with head hidden in the kit-bag, the Angel brought it off! "Attaboy!" urged the Angel to Hamish. "Slip it into the tail-coat pocket! QUICK!" And before you could have breathed a silent prayer the Emerald was in the tail-coat pocket of Mr. Collop's evening tail coat, lying there on the couch all innocent. Up came Mr. Collop's head out of the kit-bag, very red and puffy. "I thought as much, my 'earty," he said. "Dirty tykes! ... There it was...." And he brought out a gigantic flask holding perhaps a quart of the detestable beverage. The bottom of it was a silver cup fitted to the glass, and inscribed, "In grateful memory of the Bullingdon Burglary, August, 1928" and with the initials B.F. Mr. Collop solemnly half filled the receptacle, smelt it with delicate _bonhomie_, and handed it to his guest, who sipped it with the resolution in which a man must face whatever torture has to be endured. "Thank you," said Mr. McTaggart, gasping, from his flayed throat. "Cheerio!" said the Collop man, and he tossed off all that remained--enough, you would have thought, to have felled an elephant in stupor!--down his own more acclimatized gullet. Then he brought out a large tongue, licked his lips, and smacked them. "Ah, that's something like!" he said. He put the flask and the silver cup belonging to it down on his table with a happy grunt. "Well, boy, I've got to dress," he said. "So long! We meet again in the Khyber Pass, _i.e._, at his Nobship's groaning board!" And he laughed heartily at his own wit. McTaggart remembered something essential. "I say, they mustn't know that I know you!" "No fear!" said the redoubtable Collop, winking again. "I don't give you away, nor myself away, nor no one away." He had already taken off his tweed coat and waistcoat. "You run off and dress, laddie ... You keep mum. Same here!" And he dug a podgy finger into McTaggart's staggering chest. And they parted. * * * * * * *