Young Barter put off his creditor with promises. He would have lots of money by and by. That seemed credible enough in the position of affairs, and Steinberg waited. In a while, however, he became exigent, and declined any longer to be satisfied with promises. One night the unhappy rascal, playing all the more because of his troubles, all the more wildly, and certainly all the worse, fell back upon his LO.U.’s. Steinberg followed him from the club. It was late, and the streets were very quiet. ‘This won’t do, you know, Barter,’ said Steinberg, tapping him on the shoulder as they walked side by side. ‘Begad it won’t,’ said young Barter, doing his best to make light of it. ‘They’ve been cutting into me pretty freely this past week or two.’ ‘Well,’ said Steinberg, puffing at his eternal cigar, and looking askant at Barter under the light of a street-lamp which they happened to be nearing at the moment, ‘what you’ve got to do, you know, is to find the man who knows Mr. Bommaney.’ The commotion which assailed Barter at this speech was like an inward earthquake. ‘What--what do you mean?’ he panted. ‘That’s what you’ve got to do,’ said Steinberg tranquilly. ‘Do you mean to insinuate----’ Barter began to bluster; but the older, cooler, and more accomplished scoundrel stopped him contemptuously. ‘You know where they are,’ he said ‘Why don’t you get at ‘em?’ VI About noon on the following day Mr. Steinberg, seated in a small inner chamber in Hatton Garden, leisurely answering his sole business correspondent of that morning, was in no way surprised when the boy he employed to open the door and receive visitors brought in a card bearing the name of ‘Mr. John Barter, jun.’ ‘Show him in,’ said Mr. Steinberg; and young Mr. Barter, hearing this in the outer room, came in with a pale-faced and excited alacrity. The diamond merchant dismissed the boy with a word. ‘Well,’ he said, turning the tip of his cigar upwards by a protrusion of the under lip, ‘what is it?’ ‘About that little matter,’ said young Barter nervously, ‘we were talking of last night.’ ‘The little matter we were talking of last night?’ asked Steinberg idly, looking at him with half-shut eyes. ‘That hundred you owe me?’ ‘Well, perhaps that afterwards,’ said Barter with a frightened breathless laugh in his voice. ‘But about the other matter first.’ ‘The other matter?’ Steinberg asked, in a lazier manner than before. ‘What other matter?’ He took up his pen, dipped it in the inkstand before him, and tracing a line or two of his correspondent’s communication with it, turned to his own unfinished letter. Young Barter was already sufficiently agitated, and this curious reception made him more embarrassed than ever. ‘About that affair of Bommaney’s,’ he said, feeling as if a rapid wheel had been somehow started in his brain.