“I will have my bond, sir, or nothing,” I said; and I put on an attitude of resolution which I confess surprised even myself.

“Wery vell,” he shrieked, with many oaths, “then you shall have noting—­ha, ha, ha!—­noting but a policeman!  Mr. Abednego, call a policeman!  Take that, you humbug and impostor!” and here, with an abundance of frightful language which I dare not repeat, the wealthy banker abused and defied me.

Au bout du compte, what was I to do, if a banker did not choose to honor a cheque drawn by his dead grandmother?  I began to wish I had my snuff-box back.  I began to think I was a fool for changing that little old-fashioned gold for this slip of strange paper.

Meanwhile the banker had passed from his fit of anger to a paroxysm of despair.  He seemed to be addressing some person invisible, but in the room:  “Look here, ma’am, you’ve really been coming it too strong.  A hundred thousand in six months, and now a thousand more!  The ’ouse can’t stand it; it won’t stand it, I say!  What?  Oh! mercy, mercy!”

As he uttered these words, A Hand fluttered over the table in the air!  It was a female hand:  that which I had seen the night before.  That female hand took a pen from the green baize table, dipped it in a silver inkstand, and wrote on a quarter of a sheet of foolscap on the blotting-book, “How about the diamond robbery?  If you do not pay, I will tell him where they are.”

What diamonds? what robbery? what was this mystery?  That will never be ascertained, for the wretched man’s demeanor instantly changed.  “Certainly, sir;—­oh, certainly,” he said, forcing a grin.  “How will you have the money, sir?  All right, Mr. Abednego.  This way out.”

“I hope I shall often see you again,” I said; on which I own poor Manasseh gave a dreadful grin, and shot back into his parlor.

I ran home, clutching the ten delicious, crisp hundred pounds, and the dear little fifty which made up the account.  I flew through the streets again.  I got to my chambers.  I bolted the outer doors.  I sank back in my great chair, and slept. . . .

My first thing on waking was to feel for my money.  Perdition!  Where was I?  Ha!—­on the table before me was my grandmother’s snuff-box, and by its side one of those awful—­those admirable—­sensation novels, which I had been reading, and which are full of delicious wonder.

But that the guillotine is still to be seen at Mr. Gale’s, No. 47, High Holborn, I give you my honor.  I suppose I was dreaming about it.  I don’t know.  What is dreaming?  What is life?  Why shouldn’t I sleep on the ceiling?—­and am I sitting on it now, or on the floor?  I am puzzled.  But enough.  If the fashion for sensation novels goes on, I tell you I will write one in fifty volumes.  For the present, DIXI.  But between ourselves, this Pinto, who fought at the Colosseum, who was nearly being roasted by the Inquisition, and sang duets at Holyrood, I am rather sorry to lose him after three little bits of Roundabout Papers.  Et vous?