“I'll have to take Hyam in hand myself,” said Aline, decisively. “Well, he'll have to pay up some day. Then there's Blathwayt & Co.,--and Tilney--that's quite right--but where did you get all that gold from, Jimmie?” “Oh, that was somebody else,” he said vaguely. Then turning to the waitress, who had sauntered up to open the bottle of Bass, he pointed at Aline's lunch. “Do you mind taking away that eccentric pie-thing and bringing the most nutritious dish you have in the establishment?” “But, Jimmie, this is a Bath bun. It's delicious,” protested Aline. “My dear child, growing girls cannot be fed like bears on buns. Ah, here,” he said to the waitress who showed him the little wooden-handled frame containing the tariff, “bring this young lady some galantine of chicken.” Aline, who in her secret heart loved the “eccentric pie-thing” beyond all other dainties, and trembled at the stupendous charge, possibly ninepence or a shilling, that would be made for the galantine, yielded, after the manner of women, because she knew it would please Jimmie. But accustomed to his diplomatic methods, she felt that a red herring--or a galantine--had been drawn across the track. “Who was the somebody else?” she asked. He nodded and drank a draught of beer and wiped the froth from his moustache. Something unusual in his personal appearance suddenly caught her attention. His watch-chain was dangling loose from the buttonhole of his waistcoat. “Your watch!” she gasped. Dissimulation being vain, Jimmie confessed. “You told me this morning, my dear, that if we didn't get fifty pounds to-day we were ruined. You spoke alarmingly of the workhouse. My debt collecting amounted to thirty-eight pounds fifteen. I tried hard to work the obdurate bosom up to eleven pounds five, but he would only give me eight.” “You don't mean to say you have sold your beautiful gold watch for eight pounds?” cried the girl, turning as pale as the milk in front of her. It had been a present from a wealthy stockbroker who had been delighted with his portrait painted by Jimmie a couple of years ago, and it was thick and heavy and the pride of Aline's existence. It invested Jimmie with an air of solidity, worldly substantiality; and it was the only timekeeper they had ever had in the house which properly executed its functions. Now he had sold it! Was there ever so exasperating a man? He was worse than Moses with his green spectacles. But Jimmie reassured her. He had only pawned the watch at Attenborough's over the way. “Then give me the ticket, do, or you'll lose it, Jimmie.”