Australian gold-mines.  When Caldigate heard this, he looked round involuntarily to see whether the door was closed.  ‘We’re tiled, of course,’ said Bollum.  Caldigate with a frown nodded his head, and Bollum went on.  He hadn’t come there, he said, to speak of some recent troubles of which he had heard.  He wasn’t the man to shove his nose into other people’s matters.  It was nothing to him who was married to whom.  Caldigate shivered, but sat and listened in silence.  But Mr. Bollum had had dealings,—­many dealings,—­with Timothy Crinkett.  Indeed he was ready to say that Timothy Crinkett was his uncle.  He was not particularly proud of his uncle, but nevertheless Timothy Crinkett was his uncle.  Didn’t Mr. Caldigate think that something ought to be done for Timothy Crinkett?

‘Yes, I do,’ said Caldigate, finding himself compelled to say something at the moment, and feeling that he could say so much with positive truth.

Then Bollum continued his story, showing that he knew all the circumstances of Polyeuka.  ’It was hard on them, wasn’t it, Mr. Caldigate?’

‘I think it was.’

’Every rap they had among them, Mr. Caldigate!  You left them as bare as the palm of my hand!’

’It was not my doing.  I simply made him an offer, which every one at the time believed to be liberal.’

’Just so.  We grants all that.  But still you got all their money;—­old pals of yours too, as they say out there.’

’It is a matter of most intense regret to me.  As soon as I knew the circumstances, Mr. Bollum, I should have been most happy to have divided the loss with them—­’

‘That’s it,—­that’s it.  That’s what’d be right between man and man,’ said Mr. Bollum, interrupting him.

‘Had no other subject been introduced.’

’I know nothing about other subjects.  I haven’t come here to meddle with other subjects.  I’m, as it were, a partner of Crinkett’s.  Any way, I am acting as his agent.  I’m quite above board, Mr. Caldigate, and in what I say I mean to stick to my own business and not go beyond it.  Twenty thousand pounds is what we ask,—­so that we and you may share the loss.  You agree to that?’

‘I should have agreed to it two months since,’ said Caldigate, fearing that he might be caught in a trap,—­anxious to do nothing mean, unfair, or contrary to the law,—­craving in his heart after the bold, upright conduct of a thoroughly honourable English gentleman, and yet desirous also to use, if it might be used, the instrumentality of this man.

‘And why not now?  You see,’ said Bollum, becoming a little more confidential, ’how difficult it is for me to speak.  Things ain’t altered.  You’ve got the money.  They’ve lost the money.  There isn’t any ill-will, Mr. Caldigate.  As for Crinkett, he’s a rough diamond, of course.  What am I to say about the lady?’

‘I don’t see that you need say anything.’

’That’s just it.  Of course she’s one of them.  That’s all.  If there is to be money, she’ll have her share.  He’s an old fool, and perhaps they’ll make a match of it.’  As he said this he winked.  ’At any rate they’ll be off to Australia together.  And what I propose is this, Mr. Caldigate—­’ Then he paused.