Ripe his pockets: what did that mean? but this problem did not occupy much of the precious time which Eddy had to give up to thinking. He found the pencil lying where he had left it, the cabalistic pencil which he had been waving over Archie’s cheque, hoping perhaps to convey thus into it the alterations which James Rowland could have made so easily, which would have cost that millionaire so little, and done Eddy such a world of advantage. A malison on all millionaires! What they might do with a sweep of the pen, without ever feeling it, without knowing that a crumb had fallen off their well-covered tables for a dog to eat! Eddy flung the pencil from him in his indignation. The fellow meant very well, he allowed that. There was advantage in keeping this little transaction quite dark, in obliterating all traces of the loan or gift given him in this way. But, confound the fellow, all the same! Eddy flung his pencil out of his hand, and it fell on the floor at the foot of the table where Archie had been sitting. The dumb articles that one throws away generally have a prompt revenge over us in having to be groped after next minute; and this was what happened to Eddy. But as he stooped to pick it up, his heart began to beat with a wild commotion which almost choked him: for there at the foot of the table, underneath the chair which Archie had pushed away, lay a long booklet in a green paper cover. There could be no doubt to the most ignorant what it was. It was Archie’s cheque book, which he had brought in, in case Eddy should, after all, have preferred his money that way, with a cheque written out for Archie’s spare fifty pounds on the first page, and a dozen more blank cheques behind. The blood mounted up to Eddy’s face. It came in such a rush that he could scarcely see for the moment; and yet he knew very well what it was, and the inconceivable opportunity which the devil--was it the devil, or that something not always benevolent which people call providence, had put into his hand?