Saturday was always an "off" day with Mr. Boyne. Working people did not pay their weekly insurance premiums till Monday. Saturday is the half-day with the working class as Wednesday is with the shop-keeping community. Now on that particular Saturday Bernard Boyne, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, sent Mrs. Felmore to King Street to buy him a tin of tomato soup. He wrote down the brand on an old envelope. And he wanted nothing else. "If one grocer has not got it, another has, no doubt. If you can’t get it in Hammersmith go down to Chiswick or Bedford Park," he said. "You’ll find it somewhere." And the old woman, whose shopping successes were always marvellous considering her stone deafness, went forth, little dreaming that such a brand as that he had written down was non-existent. So all the morning until well into the afternoon Bernard Boyne had the house entirely to himself. As soon as she had gone, Boyne put on his white disguise and, rushing upstairs to the locked room, opened it. "Now then!" he shouted roughly. "Are you ready? Have you dressed yet? No—you haven’t. Now put it on—quick. Come out and get some air. It’s stifling in this place!" He waited at the door, whereupon a white figure, dressed exactly the same as himself, emerged, and slowly and painfully came down the stairs. The two weird figures, linked arm in arm, descended to Boyne’s parlour, whereupon in an authoritative tone he ordered the strange creature to be seated. "Sit there!" he said. "And I’ll open the window. You want a bit of air and exercise." "Food! Food!" came the words, weak and squeaky behind the hideous mask. "Very well. I’ll go and get you some. But you can’t eat it yet. Not till you’re back again in your own room. Food!" he said roughly, with a sneer. "You’re always wanting food and water. Fortunately the cistern is up there, or I’d have to carry up every drop for you. But your food I never forget, do I, eh?" he shouted, as though the strange figure was as deaf as old Mrs. Felmore. The hooded figure, huddled in the arm-chair, only shrugged its shoulders. From the voice it was impossible to tell the sex of the individual. The tone was weak, squeaky, and quite unnatural. "Now, tell me, what have you done?" asked Boyne. "How is it progressing? I know you must be lonely sometimes, but it can’t be helped. You are not fit to mix with us, you know. And you exist upon my charity. I am always good to you! Understand that!" "I—I know," squeaked the figure, whose white cloak was soiled and stained, while those two long slits for the eyes under the pointed hood gave it a most weird and forbidding appearance. "I hope you appreciate all I’ve done for you," Boyne went on. "If I had not risked all this, where would you have been—tried and executed in the hangman’s noose. But I have done my best—though often you don’t appreciate it."