At a square table, with his back to the fire, sat Mr. Barker, a stout, bald-headed, foxy-looking man, dressed in a blue frock coat and white waistcoat, with a flower in his buttonhole, and a rather conspicuous display of jewelry. He nodded familiarly to "Mr. James" as to an old acquaintance. "I rather thought you might call in the course of the day," he said. "Come to settle up, eh?" "Yes, come to settle up," was the answer, with a faint sigh. "Perhaps you won't mind taking the greater part in gold; your doing so will oblige me." "I shall have no objection at all, Mr. James. It don't matter to me--ha! ha!--in what form it comes, so long as I get hold of it. What nice weather we have been having of late." Mr. James opened his bag and drew therefrom twelve small canvas bags containing one hundred sovereigns each. "Be good enough to count these," he said. Mr. Barker emptied one bag on the table and counted its contents into little piles of twenty sovereigns each. "I won't detain you, Mr. James, while I count the rest," he said. "I have no doubt I shall find them quite correct." "There are twelve there," said Mr. James, indicating the bags. Then he drew a roll of notes from his breast-pocket. "These will make up the seventeen." Mr. Barker took the notes, wetted his forefinger, and counted them one by one. "Right you are, sir, and I'm very much obliged to you," was his comment when he had done. Then he went to a safe in one corner, and having deposited the notes and gold in it, he drew from a receptacle containing several other documents of a similar kind, a long, narrow strip of bluish paper, which he handed to his visitor. "All ready and prepared, you see," he said, with a smile. Mr. James just glanced at the document, then he crumpled it up, and flinging it into the fire, watched it till nothing was left of it but ashes. Mr. Barker laughed. "Have a glass of sherry. You are not looking over-bright to-day," he said, heartily. "Thanks; I never drink before dinner," was the answer. "I have been worried a little in business matters lately, that is all," he added. "But I am going to take a long holiday presently." "Nothing like it when you're fagged out, or when the machinery gets a bit out of gear," responded Mr. Barker. "Can't keep the bow always bent, you know. Sha'n't see you again for some time, then? South of France--Italian Lakes--eh?" "Well, I hardly know yet where I am bound for," said Mr. James, with a curious, pallid smile. Then he took up his hat and brushed it round with his sleeve in a hesitating way very unusual with him. "Nothing you see or hear ever surprises you, does it, Mr. Barker?" he asked. "Well, no, Mr. James. I'm rather too old a bird to be surprised at anything." "Then you won't be surprised at anything you may read in the papers in the course of the next few days." Mr. Barker winked and laid a finger against one side of his nose. As an action it was vulgar, but expressive.