"DEAR GOBION,--The game is played almost to an end. Only one more move, and that not till next June, to be taken. Then will be peace at last. My latest has been of its kind a master-stroke, that is, to disappear. Things were getting too hot for me, so I have gone down to read. Everybody was getting suspicious, and eyed me askance. Drage was sent down (another disappearance!) for lying drunk with a friend from Oriel in the fellows' quad, and for reviling the buck priest most blasphemously in that he had awakened him. My tutor waxed very wroth with me. I was troubled with frightful insomnia every afternoon, and often in the morning--often finding it necessary to go to bed at midnight, rise at two a.m. and work till five or so, and again retire. Perhaps this was due to the fact that I had to sleep off certain matters of no importance, and then awake early, which is a way of mine. Drage's last moments in Oxford I soothed by fetching Father Gray at ten p.m. Tommy had all sorts of ideas, Stage, Germany, Colonies, every manner of starvation, so I applied his Reverence as a last remedy, which succeeded. Many things I could tell you of this, but not now. He (the Gray father) has got a rich young cub with him, Lord Frederick Staines Calvert, and they are going to town for a time to-day. The boy is without understanding--very oofy--so if you are still _épris_ with the worthy parson you may be able to make something out of it. "Farewell. Thine, "ARTHUR CONDAMINE. "TO CARADOC YARDLY GOBION." Gobion showed this to Sturtevant. "Do you think there's anything in it?" he said. "Yes, I certainly do; you must make every effort to get hold of the boy. We must think out a plan; I hope he's an ass. At present he's a problem." "I'll find him out if I can get hold of him, but I don't quite see how we're going to make any money out of it." "Do you remember," said Sturtevant slowly, "that dear lady I took to your rooms when I first came up?" "Little beast! yes." "I've seen her since then; she lives in Bear Street off Leicester Square, just behind the Alhambra. Now doesn't the diffused white light of your intelligence supply the rest?" "No, I confess----"