Jim was early for the appointment, but Ryder was already at the rendezvous, seated on the log, smoking, and apparently deriving placid enjoyment from his cigar.  The young man’s greeting was warm, but the elder showed no emotion.  If any liking for Jim existed in him it was carefully hidden away.  Throughout their previous meeting he had borne himself with seriousness, as if something of importance to him were at stake; to-night he was in a wholly different humour, more like the man who had encountered Jim in Mary Kyley’s bar.

‘Are we to consider the relationship established?’ he said.

‘I am quite convinced,’ answered Jim.  ’I have not doubted it from the moment you declared yourself.’

’You are much too confiding, my boy.  As an impostor I might have gathered all these details from the real Richard Done.’

‘With what object?’

’Well, I have an object, an ulterior motive.  I want you to share a large fortune with me.’

Jim laughed.  ‘You may pick up a large family of brothers on those terms,’ he said.

‘You will do.  Is it a bargain?’

‘What is this fortune?  Where is it?  How was it come by?’

’The fortune is mainly in virgin gold; it is in an untried alluvial field.’

‘If the field is untried, how do you know the gold is in it?’

‘I put it there.’

Jim looked at Ryder sharply.  ‘You have not answered one of my questions,’ he said.  ‘How was the gold come by?’

‘There’s no objection on that score,’ Ryder answered lightly.  ’It was come by dishonestly, every grain of it.’

’To me that is a serious objection.  I am an honest man, my instincts are all for fair dealing, and I believe, as a simple everyday working principle, honesty is the best policy.’

‘Honesty is not a policy, my boy:  it is a misfortune.’

‘Why do you wish to share your loot with me?’

’Seventy or eighty thousand ounces of gold is not easily accounted for nor easily disposed of by a guest of the Queen who is on leave without a ticket that will bear the closest investigation.  You could dispose of it safely enough.’

‘And if I were asked to account for it?’

’That is provided for.  I have discovered a field within a day’s journey that nobody else knows of—­that nobody else is likely to know of.  You and I go there, we work it for a few months, and the gold I have mentioned is to be represented as the result of our labours if it becomes necessary to make explanations.  A few thousand ounces in nuggets which might ’by some unhappy chance be recognised by previous owners we shall batter into slugs and reserve for sale in other lands.’

And then?’

’Then all that life in London and Paris means to men with great fortunes.’  Ryder was smiling as he spoke.  ’Then to seize and enjoy all that smug respectability is willing to give to the wealthy, and much that it is unwilling to give, but which it shall be our pleasure to take.  Then to exact our revenge for all we have endured at the hands of society by making it in some measure the slave to minister to our needs and our desires.  I positively tremble, my brother, when I think of the little mischief one man can work; but with money and ingenuity, combined with devotion to purpose, we may succeed in accomplishing quite a decent vengeance.’