speculating. " By Jove! if he didn't find our friend
Jack at his desk, stuffing his waistcoat with his
notes and gold. Flat burglary, sir! All regularly
planned! A most outrageous business. You
see it was flag-delic ; no getting over it. There
was the awkwardness."

"And this was Fermor?" asked Sir John,
eagerly.

"No one else. The Scotchman had him
pinned by the throat in a second, and was calling
in the watch. But the other was on his marrowbones
whining for mercy, and I think the Scotchman
would have killed him. But—and here was
the best of this con-founded joke; I declare I
went near to bursting with laughter when I heard
it" (and his sausage skin went near to rupture at
the bare recollection)—"Jack, with wonderful
presence of mind, said if he would let him off,
he would tell him something about his wife.
He didn't know at the moment that something
else had been packed up and carried off, you
see!" added the colonel, making his jelly eye
tumble backwards and forwards with
extraordinary meaning. "But he did in an hour.
Dammy, sir, if that smooth pious fellow Manuel
hadn't gone off with the wife! and had her
waiting ready at an inn outside the town. A
few of the longheads had a notion of what was
coming." And the colonel hinted with his awful
old eye that he was one of these. " It was very
bad," he went on, " very bad; for you see, Manuel
left his own wife and three children, and I must
say," added the colonel, in a tone of moral
censure, " he had no excuse, literally, no excuse.
Positively a fine woman. Well, when the Scotchman
found all this out, he was near going mad.
I never saw such ridiculous nonsense. ' Dammy'
I said to him, ' what are you about? Don't make
a snivelling donkey of yourself before the town.
Take my advice, and say nothing about the business'
But no. I believe he wanted to cut the
fellow's throat, and his own afterwards. He
went after him for a week, hunted him, caught
him, and brought him back. Dammy! I think
he wanted to cut him up into collops, and fry
him slowly. Sir, you don't know what that
family owes to me, and how they treated me!
Who was it brought them through that business,
that kept the thing quiet and comfortable, but
Tom Foley, and perhaps Johnny Adams? The
fool would have gone into the street, and poked
his injuries into any man's face. I never met such
a born donkey. I kept the thing down, and
wrote to his relations. He swore he would
have the lives of the two—and clapped them
into jail. I declare to you, that gamey woman,
Lady Laura, was out with us in a week, with
the ice like half a foot of cold iron on the
ground. And up-on—my—salvation, sir,"
added the colonel, mysteriously, "Sir Thomas
Dick, the Queen's own medical fellow, told me
often, he didn't know the minute the thing would
have come off! Well, sir, she came. She saw
the Scotchman privately, was on her knees to
him privately, got round him some way, told
him lies, and, what is more, got him to swallow
them. And I can tell you, as I am a living
man and hope to be saved—dammy!" added
the colonel, with curious self-contradiction, " she
worked the thing, sir, so that she got police
and law and all those infernal things out of the
affair. The Scotchman took back his money,
and our friend was sent away to another place. I
never heard of Manuel after. I believe he got
off to America, and his widow or wife and her
three brats would have starved, if the English
hadn't made up a subscription for them. They
got a pound of my money, I know. You have to
put down, you know, when everybody puts
down. I heard they went to England afterwards.
And didn't she get round Adams and me! She
was a splendid woman then" added the colonel,
with ruminative admiration. "Quite thrown
away on the poor creature they married her to!
Well furnished, sir, here" said the colonel,
with increased relish, and laying his old hands
on his shirt front. " She swore both me and
Adams solemnly," he added, with winey reverence
"never to breathe a word of the business.
'Pon my soul!" said the colonel, getting
more and more excited, "if I had only worked
my chances, I should have done well in that
quarter. But the fellow that boasts of his
affairs is a sneak. Still, I could tell my say
as well as most men. Though," added the
colonel, thoughtfully, " I found her out afterwards
in a clever trick. She got me a majority in a
regiment, and, dammy, sir, if I didn't find out, just in
the nick of time, that they were sending it to the
African coast. I should have been dead in a week.
But she caught poor Adams in the same way, who
was not so knowing as Tom Foley. She got him
on some swamp duty, which made short work of
him. But, after all, she was a deu-sed clever
woman, O, deu-sed!"

Colonel Foley had not much to say on this
point, and his face seemed to have grown so
strained, and tightened, and inflamed—so reeking
with hot vapours and turpentine spirit—that it
seemed dangerous to go near him with a light.
His voice, too, was growing thick, and seemed
to be fighting its way to his throat through a
crowd. Reverting indignantly to the military
colonel who had written the Recollections, he
characterised them once more, with bitter
contempt, as " Slops and gruel!" and was presently
assisted to a cab, and sent home.

Sir John Westende flew to Miss Manuel. "I
have Lady Laura now," he said. " Knowing as
she is, she shall be no match for me."

He then told her as much of the story as
applied to the Fermors. " I managed it
uncommonly cleverly," he said. "I wormed it out of
an old fellow who knows everything."

"You should be a detective, Sir John," she
said, as though she were patting a horse's neck.
"They should put you in the force. I shall be
quite afraid of you."

"Nonsense," he said, much pleased. " But
let her look out. She'll find me a policeman, I