“Pray sit down,” drawled the master.  “And lean well back....  That’s right.  You know, I’m awfully sorry you left your bed.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Berry.  “I wouldn’t have missed this for any thing.  How’s Dartmoor looking?”

The fat rogue sighed.

“I have not had a holiday,” he said, “for nearly two years.  And night work tells, you know.  Of course I rest during the day, but it isn’t the same.”

“How wicked!  And they call this a free country.  I should see your M.P. about it.  Or wasn’t he up when you called?”

The other shook his head.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “he was out of Town.  George, give the gentleman a match.”  The packer picked up a match-stand and set it by Berry’s side.  “I’m so sorry about the chocolates.  You see, I wasn’t expecting——­Hullo!”

At the mention of the magical word Nobby had leapt from my unready grasp and trotted across to the fireplace.  There, to my disgust and vexation, he fixed the master with an expectant stare, and then sat up upon his hindquarters and begged a sweatmeat.

His favourer began to heave with merriment.

“What an engaging scrap!” he wheezed, taking a chocolate from an occasional table upon which the contents of a dessert dish had apparently been emptied.  “Here, my little apostate....  Well caught!”

With an irrational rapidity the Sealyham disposed of the first comfit he had been given for more than six months.  Then he resumed the attractive posture which he had found so profitable.  Lazily his patron continued to respond....

Resentfully I watched the procedure, endeavouring to console myself with the reflection that in a few hours Nature would assuredly administer to the backslider a more terrible and appropriate correction than any that I could devise.

Would Jonah never come?

I stole a glance at the clock.  Five and twenty minutes to two.  And when he did come, what then?  Were he and Harry to blunder into the slough waist-high, as we had done?  Impossible.  There was probably a man outside—­possibly a car, which would set them thinking.  Then, even if the brutes got away, their game would be spoiled.  It wouldn’t be such a humiliating walk-over.  Oh, why had Daphne come down?  Her presence put any attempt at action out of the question.  And why....

A taxi slowed for a distant corner and turned into the street.  For a moment it seemed to falter.  Then its speed was changed clumsily, and it began to grind its way in our direction.  My heart began to beat violently.  Again the speed was changed, and the rising snarl choked to give way to a metallic murmur, which was rapidly approaching.  I could hardly breathe....  Then the noise swelled up, hung for an instant upon the very crest of earshot, only to sink abruptly as the cab swept past, taking our hopes with it.

Two-thirds of the silver had disappeared.

Berry cleared his throat.