‘For the present,’ remarked Mr. Lott, as he took up his hat and stick, ’I think our business is at an end.  It isn’t often that a fellow of your sort gets his deserts, and I’m rather sorry we didn’t have the policeman in; a report of the case might do good.  I bid you good day, young man.  If I were you I’d sit quiet for an hour or two, and just reflect—­you’ve a lot to think about.’

So, with a pleasant smile, the visitor took his leave.

As he walked away he again examined the riding-whip.  ’It isn’t often a thing happens so luckily,’ he said to himself.  ’First-rate whip; hardly a bit damaged.  Harry’ll like it none the worse for my having handselled it.’

At the station he found Mr. Daffy and Bowles, who regarded him with questioning looks.

‘Nothing to be got out of him,’ said Mr. Lott.  ’Bowles, I want a talk with you and Jane; it’ll be best, perhaps, if I go back home with you.  Mr. Daffy, sorry we can’t travel down together.  You’ll catch the eight o’clock.’

‘I hope you told him plainly what you thought of him,’ said Mr. Daffy, in a voice of indignant shame.

‘I did,’ answered the timber-merchant, ’and I don’t think he’s very likely to forget it.’

FATE AND THE APOTHECARY

‘Farmiloe.  Chemist by Examination.’  So did the good man proclaim himself to a suburb of a city in the West of England.  It was one of those pretty, clean, fresh-coloured suburbs only to be found in the west; a few dainty little shops, everything about them bright or glistening, scattered among pleasant little houses with gardens eternally green and all but perennially in bloom; every vista ending in foliage, and in one direction a far glimpse of the Cathedral towers, sending forth their music to fall dreamily upon these quiet roads.  The neighbourhood seemed to breathe a tranquil prosperity.  Red-cheeked emissaries of butcher, baker, and grocer, order-book in hand, knocked cheerily at kitchen doors, and went smiling away; the ponies they drove were well fed and frisky, their carts spick and span.  The church of the parish, an imposing edifice, dated only from a few years ago, and had cost its noble founder a sum of money which any church-going parishioner would have named to you with proper awe.  The population was largely female, and every shopkeeper who knew his business had become proficient in bowing, smiling, and suave servility.

Mr. Farmiloe, it is to be feared, had no very profound acquaintance with his business from any point of view.  True, he was ‘chemist by examination,’ but it had cost him repeated efforts to reach this unassailable ground and more than one pharmaceutist with whom he abode as assistant had felt it a measure of prudence to dispense with his services.  Give him time, and he was generally equal to the demands of suburban customers; hurry or interrupt him, and he showed himself anything but the man for a crisis.  Face and demeanour were against him.  He had exceedingly plain features, and a persistently sour expression; even his smile suggested sarcasm.  He could not tune his voice to the tradesman note, and on the slightest provocation he became, quite unintentionally, offensive.  Such a man had no chance whatever in this flowery and bowery little suburb.