"Oh," says he, "don't you fear, Britten, I shan't treat you that way--you may drink my whisky all right, a barrelful if you can. When I want to deal with you, Britten, it will be another way altogether--cash, my boy; have you any objection to a little cash?" I opened my eyes wide, telling myself, for the second time, that he was as certainly mad as any March hare in the picture-books; but I said nothing, for he had turned to a little wooden cupboard near the fireplace, and before he spoke again he set a bottle of whisky, a syphon, and two tumblers on the table, and poured out a stiffish dose for himself and its fellow for me. When I had watched him drink it, and not before, I followed suit, and never did a man want a whisky and soda as badly. "Your health," says he--I believe I wished him the same. "And little Mabel Bellamy's----" I put the glass down on the table with a bang. "Good God!" said I, "not Mabel Bellamy that did the disappearing trick at the Folies Bergeres in Paris two years ago?" "The same," says he. "And you are telling me----" "That she was a very fine actress. Do you deny it, Mr. Britten?" I rose and buttoned my coat--but the black look was in his eyes again. "Britten," says he, "not in so much of a hurry, if you please. I am going round to the _Daily Herald_ this afternoon to get that five hundred. You will sit here until I return, when I shall pay you fifty of the best. Is it a bargain, Britten--have we the right to the money or have you?" I thought upon it for a moment and could not deny the justice of it. "Do you mean to say you did it for an advertisement?" I cried. "The very same," says he, "and this night, Mabel's fond papa, the gentleman with the big eyes, Britten, will go to Hampstead and take his long-lost daughter to his breast. She makes her first appearance at the Casino Theatre to-morrow night, Britten----" I rose and shook him by the hand. "Fifty of the best," said I, "and I'll wait for them here." * * * * * Well, I must say it was a tidy good notion, first for the pair of them to work a trick like that on the public just for the sake of letting all the world know that Mabel Bellamy was to disappear from a basket at the Casino Theatre; and secondly, dropping on the _Daily Herald_ for five hundred of the best--and getting it, too, before the story got wind. You see, the _Herald_ lost no money, for they had a fine scoop all to their little selves, while the other papers gnashed their teeth and looked on. Nor was the whole truth told by a long way, but a garbled version about foreign coves who worked the business and bolted, and a doting father who never consented to it--and such a hash-up and hocus-pocus as would have made a pig laugh. Whether, however, the public really took it all, or whether it resented the manner of the play, is not for me to say.