That rising man of affairs, Mr. Horace Dobb, was setting out on his afternoon stroll—which is relatively equivalent to saying that Beau Nash had just appeared in the Pump Room at Bath, or that the Prince Regent had issued forth to sun himself on the Steine at Brighthelmstone.

For, whatever drab limitations the keeping of a second-hand shop might impose upon Mr. Dobb’s wardrobe during the exigencies of the morning, the afternoon would almost invariably have the gratification of witnessing that gentleman’s apotheosis.  Then Mr. Dobb who spent his mornings in dragging bulky things about in the remote dustiness of his outhouse, or in cajoling and brow-beating clients across the counter, was as different from the Mr. Dobb of the afternoon as is the lowly grub from the full-winged butterfly.

Mr. Dobb, because he deemed that he owed a fitting publicity to his occupation and to his own personality, had taken the hours which intervene between dinner and tea, and had incorporated them into a general scheme for his glorification.  Other business men might permit the searching post-meridian sunshine to illuminate frayed cuffs and shiny elbows, to exhibit symptoms of haste and heedlessness upon waistcoat fronts, to reveal circumstantial evidence with regard to linen collars.  Such negligence of apparel had ceased to be any part of Mr. Dobb’s policy.

And so Mr. Dobb was sauntering forth in all his accustomed splendour.  Upon his sleekly anointed hair there rested a soft felt hat of exceeding plushiness, with a tuft of strange feathers thrust into its band to hint at sporting prowess.  A very high and very stiff collar encircled Mr. Dobb’s throat, and upon a necktie of cheerful patterning there was pillowed a scarfpin conspicuously, like the headlight upon a locomotive.  A shaggy tweed suit, of a hue which far o’erleapt snuff and only narrowly missed mustard, graced Mr. Dobb’s frame, and his feet were encased in orange-coloured boots of a squeakiness surely without parallel.

And when the eye had become inured to these glories, returning powers of vision brought apprehension of a silver-mounted cane, of a buttonhole of geranium blooms, of a cigar, and a festooning watch-chain, and of the phenomena of tan gloves, not worn on the hands, but carried carelessly, as though their presence were due to a merest afterthought on the part of lazy luxury.

And thus did Mr. Dobb arrive at the corner where Fore Street joins Bridge Street, and here he paused to gaze up and down the road.  A fine sense of dominance permeated Mr. Dobb as he stood there, and the expression with which he viewed the amenities of the place was one nicely calculated to hover midway between languid interest and patrician disdain.

And then, as an ancient ewer may be rare and valuable ware in one moment and, in the next, be but so much broken crockery, so in a twinkling was Mr. Dobb transformed from a proud autocrat to a quaking fugitive.

Gone was all trace of hauteur from his face, vanished completely was all swaggering complacency of manner.  There was a hunted look in his eyes, and he had become limp and drooping and manifestly unstable at the knees.

And the whole change had happened in that trice which is occupied by the clash of two pairs of eyes meeting each other in a glance of recognition across a narrow thoroughfare.

“’Strewth!” breathed Mr. Dobb, aghast, and made a convulsive, clutching movement towards his hat, but checked his arm halfway.  “’Strewth!” he said again, but even more emphatically; and then spun round on his heel and began to retrace his way along Fore Street at a pace in marked contrast to his previous gait.

“Why—” he began, and then stopped and stared at his wife as though the situation had suddenly unfolded itself to exhibit a further cause for consternation.

And next he frenziedly unlocked the door and plucked the portal open, and plunged out again into the street.  Glimpse of a figure in the distance served efficiently as spur, and Mr. Dobb raced wildly away in the opposite direction.  Not until he had swerved round three successive corners did he feel emboldened to moderate his pace, and even then he travelled at something approximating a canter.

But at last he came to the region of the harbour, and reaching the “Flag and Pennant” shipway, he vigorously semaphored for the attendance of the ferryman stationed there.  On his hasty arrival, that functionary found himself directed to take Mr. Dobb across the river with the utmost possible speed.

Mr. Samuel Clark, the ferryman, well used to the vagaries of his present patron and former shipmate of the “Jane Gladys,” made no immediate comment, but assisted his passenger into the boat and began to transport him with commendable energy.  Mr. Dobb, removing his high collar and thrusting it into his pocket, made the noises of one narrowly saved from suffocation, and gazed fearfully over his shoulder at the receding river bank.

“Doings?” asked Mr. Clark, with the liveliest expectancy.

“Not ’alf!” was Mr. Dobb’s reply.  “Not ’alf!” he said again; and shivered perceptibly.

In face of this discouraging reply, Mr. Clark had not the hardihood to press for more explicit information.  Ever one to concede that there was a wrong time and a right time to appeal to Mr. Dobb’s confidence, the look on that gentleman’s face warned him that this was indubitably one of the wrong times.

In pondering silence, therefore, did the plump and ancient ferryman bend his best efforts to conveying Mr. Dobb to the further side of the harbour, and when this had been achieved, he immediately put about to accord loyal and unquestioning fulfilment to the remainder of Mr. Dobb’s instructions.

Well within the hour, Mr. Clark returned in convoy of Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock, and the three entered the presence of Mr. Dobb in the otherwise vacant tap-room of the “Red Lion.”

Mr. Dobb had recovered some meed of his composure in the interval, but the rosiness of complexion induced by violent exercise had now faded to an ascetic pallor, and his eyes looked up dully from deep and dark circles.  Evidence of his mental state was afforded by the fact that he was sitting on his ornate hat.

“Lummy, ’Orace, you do look upset!” observed Mr. Tridge, in concern.

“He looks real downright bad,” asserted Mr. Lock.

Mr. Dobb, gazing with lack-lustre eyes from one to the other of his old shipmates, shook his head forlornly and gave vent to a sigh of extraordinary duration.

“Why, ’e looks as if ’e’d seen a ghost,” declared Mr. Tridge.

“I ’ave,” said Mr. Dobb; “that’s just what I ’ave seen.  A ghost—a real live ghost!”

Mr. Tridge threw a startled glance at the empty tumbler standing before Mr. Dobb.

“No, it ain’t that,” said Mr. Dobb, comprehending. “That is only the third I’ve ’ad all day.  It’s a real ghost I’ve seen.  A ghost from out of the past,” he ended, with a fugitive gleam of pride in the quality of this phrase.

Mr. Lock, his head a little on one side, speculatively scrutinized this beholder of visions.  Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock stared at each other in a baffled way, and privately intimated a mutual disbelief in the sanity of their friend.

“Boys,” said Mr. Dobb, “she’s ’ere.”

“Which she?” cried Mr. Tridge, not without perturbation.

“’Oo do you think?” dallied Mr. Dobb.

“Not—not that widder woman from Teignmouth, that Mrs. Larstick?” queried Mr. Clark, shakily.  “Not ’er?  That I do ’ope.  Don’t say it’s ’er?” he begged.

“N-n-n-nor y-y-y-yet th-th-th-that—” stammered Mr. Tridge, clearly lacking full control of his jaw.

“Why the dooce don’t you say straight out, ’Orace?” asked Mr. Lock.

Mr. Dobb swallowed convulsively and steadied himself by taking a firm grip on the arms of his chair.

“It’s—it’s Looie Radling,” he announced.

“Werry nice,” agreed Mr. Clark, in equal relief.  “It’ll be a pleasure to meet ’er again.”

Mr. Lock, smiling, readjusted the set of his necktie.

“But—but ’ave you forgot?” asked Mr. Dobb, incredulously.  “Talking like that!  ’Ave you forgot or what?”

“Forgot what?” returned Mr. Tridge.

“Why,” Mr. Dobb replied, wretchedly, “I’m hengaged to that gal?”

“But ’ow can you be, ’Orace?” very reasonably contended Mr. Clark.  “You’re married to your missis, and she’s a very ’ealthy-looking lady.”

“I married my missis a bit sudden, about eight months ago, as you may remember,” said Mr. Dobb.

“Oh, well, it wasn’t in reason you could afford to miss the chance of owning a nice little shop like ’ers,” pointed out Mr. Tridge, extenuatingly.

“Quite so,” acquiesced Mr. Dobb.  “Only—only I ’appened by chance to be hengaged to Looie Radling at the time.  I’d been hengaged to ’er two months and more when I first met my missis.”

“And stayed be’ind and got married to ’er by special licence and took up life ashore, while us other chaps went on in the ‘Jane Gladys’ the last month afore she was sold,” recalled Mr. Tridge.  “I remember now.”

“Ah, I seem to remember something about you being engaged to a Miss Radling,” admitted Mr. Lock.  “Greenwich gal, ain’t she?”

“Anyway, she’s tracked me down now,” said Mr. Dobb; and made fretful gestures and noises for a while.

“Oh, well, you’re married now, and there’s an end of it,” remarked Mr. Tridge, soothingly.

“That’s just where you’re wrong,” complained Mr. Dobb.  “Now Looie Radling’s found me out there won’t be a end to it.  It’ll be the start, not the end.”

“Breach o’ promise!” cried Mr. Tridge.  “Of course, I ’adn’t thought of that.”

“’As she got any of your letters, though?” asked Mr. Clark, acutely.

“’Undreds!” groaned Mr. Dobb.

“She won’t half get some damages out of you,” prophesied Mr. Lock, cheerfully.  “Having a business of your own now, and doing so well, they’ll award her a real big sum.  Three or four ’undred, I dare say,” he hazarded, yawning carelessly.

“What?” screamed Mr. Dobb, in consternation. “Why, I can’t lay ’ands on a quarter of that!”

“No, I don’t suppose you can,” agreed Mr. Lock. “But then I ain’t the judge and jury.  They won’t believe you in court, you being so well known in Shore’aven.  You’ll have to sell up your business and go back to sea, and pay her the damages in instalments.  Long, long years ahead from now you’ll still be scraping together to pay her—”

“Oh, shut up!” bellowed Mr. Dobb, rendered almost hysterical by contemplation of so doleful a prospect.

“Yes, if only she’d seen you in your shirt-sleeves and your old trowsis,” put in Mr. Clark, “very likely she’d only ’ave thought ‘good riddance to bad rubbish,’ and thought no more about you.”

“Ah, and that ain’t all, neither,” said Mr. Dobb, miserably.  “What’s going to ’appen when my missis ’ears about it?  I shan’t ever ’ear the last of it!  If them two females was to meet—”

“There’s men in your position ’ave drownded themselves, ’Orace,” remarked Mr. Tridge, tonelessly.

“That’s about the only way out of it that I can see,” observed Mr. Lock, with brutal frankness.

“I never did trust women!” vehemently cried aloud Mr. Dobb.  “Never!”

“The great thing, I should say,” mentioned Mr. Lock, “is to keep from kicking and struggling.  Just keep quiet, and when you go down for the third time it’ll be all over.  I’ve heard say that it’s really rather a pleasant feeling, once you get over your mouth being full of water.”

Mr. Dobb, setting his palms on his knees, turned and stared coldly at Mr. Lock.

“Ah, I shall always remember how you’re looking at me, ’Orace,” said Mr. Lock, gently.  “Sort of sad and mournful.”

“I suppose,” vouchsafed Mr. Clark, thoughtfully—“I suppose as you can’t prove a hallybee, ’Orace?  I done that once, and it come off all right, and we had the goose that very same night for supper.”

“Something could be done,” said Mr. Tridge.  “I’m sure it could.  Only, of course, it’s ’ard thinking when you’re thirsty.”

“To begin with, you’re sure she recognized you, ’Orace?” pressed Mr. Tridge.

“I see ’er regular jump at sight of me,” asserted Mr. Dobb.

“P’r’aps,” suggested Mr. Clark, “it was your clothes she saw.”

“Next thing,” continued Mr. Tridge, “what makes you think she’s tracked you down special?  It may be the biggest haccident ’er being ’ere and coming across you.”

“Why, she may ’ave forgotten you,” put forward Mr. Clark.  “After all, it’s eight months and more since you saw her last.”

“Perhaps she’s got married, too,” said Mr. Lock, hopefully.

“Well, there, I never thought of that!” exclaimed Mr. Dobb, brightening.  “Bit fickle it would be, though, wouldn’t it?” he went on in accents slightly flavoured with disapproval.

“Seems to me,” said Mr. Lock, “the best thing would be to find out just how the land lies.  You’re a pretty good hand at that sort of thing, Sam.  Suppose you was to go over and look about, and see if you could see her and have a little chat with her?”

“That’s it, Sam!  You’ve got a nacheral gift of tact!” fawned Mr. Dobb.  “You cut on back over to the town, and see if you can find ’er and learn what’s in the wind.”

A vivid light is thrown on the state of Mr. Dobb’s mind when it is mentioned that, with no more demur than a sigh and a shake of the head, he dropped two shillings into Mr. Clark’s extended palm, and silently added two threepenny pieces when that gentleman did not move at once.

“I’ll be as quick as ever I can,” promised Mr. Clark, in going.  “’Ere,” he sternly warned Mr. Dobb, “don’t you go a-doing anything rash while I’m away, and give me all me trouble for nothing!  Wait till I come back, at any rate!”

The envoy departed, and a couple of hours passed before his friends saw him again.  Meanwhile, Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock had devoted the interval to the benevolent purpose of cheering up Mr. Dobb, and so successful had they been that Mr. Clark, on his return, stood awhile at the threshold of the “Red Lion” tap-room to listen in amazement to the careless mirth within.

“That’s right, ’Orace!” he observed, significantly. “You laugh while you can!”

At these ill-omened words, the merriment faded abruptly, and Mr. Dobb was distinctly heard to groan.

“I’ve seed ’er,” announced Mr. Clark; and advancing, patted Mr. Dobb thrice on the shoulder, very slowly, and solemnly.

“Well, then,” hotly cried Mr. Tridge, with due understanding of this action, “she’s a mink!  That’s what she is—a mink!”

“You take my advice, ’Orace,” recommended Mr. Clark.  “Hostralia!”

There was a little wait while the quailing Mr. Dobb was sorrowfully regarded by his three friends, as though even now they were bidding him farewell on his departure to the Antipodes.  Mr. Dobb gazed back, horror-struck, at each of his three companions in turn, and when his glance rested upon Mr. Lock, that gentleman rose and shook hands with him with a long and lingering clasp.  And then Mr. Dobb shakily emptied each of the glasses on the table before him, and no one had the hardness of heart to bid him nay.

And next, Mr. Clark proceeded to narrate his interview with Miss Radling.  He had found her, it transpired, in the High Street, and had at length managed to recall himself to her memory, a task which had been rendered a little protracted by the fact that Miss Radling gave but superficial attention to him at first, being more zealously employed in taking close heed of the faces of all male passers-by.

Mr. Clark immediately professed ignorance of Mr. Dobb’s whereabouts, but pretended to a vague belief that the late cook of the “Jane Gladys” was now somewhere in Scotland.  Miss Radling promptly controverted this, stating with complete certainty that she had herself seen Mr. Dobb in Shorehaven during that very afternoon.  She had also added, with sinister vehemence, that she intended to see Mr. Dobb again and again before she had finished with him.

“But—but—but what for?” interposed the miserable Mr. Dobb.

“Just what I says to her,” responded Mr. Clark.  “‘What for?’ I says.  And she says as ’ow you was hengaged to ’er, and you ’adn’t wrote ’er a line for months.  ‘Though,’ she says, ‘the letters ’e wrote me before that is quite enough to do the trick.  I’ve kept ’em all,’ she says, ‘and I’m going to get even with ’im some’ow.  Either ’e’s got to put the banns up or else I goes to the best lawyer in Shore’aven.  I’ve found out, by chance, that ’Orace Dobb is living in these parts, and,’ says she—”

“Now, ’ow the dooce did she find that out?” questioned Mr. Tridge, wrathfully.

“Wasn’t the ‘Raven’ in ’arbour here a fortnight or so after you settled into your shop, ’Orace?” put forward Mr. Lock.

“It was!” bellowed Mr. Dobb.  “Well, there’s a nasty, low, mean, under’and, sneaking trick to—”

“Can’t you just see them ‘Raven’ chaps a-grinning when they fixed all this up for me?” growled Mr. Dobb.

“Did she seem sort of forgiving at all, Sam?” asked Mr. Lock.

“Oh, dear me, no!” returned Mr. Clark.  “Quite the contrary, in fact.  You oughter seen the way she folded ’er lips.  A nice-spoken, pleasant-looking, ladylike gal like that, too!  I was surprised ’ow sharp and determined she could be.”

And now Mr. Clark, with considerable pride in his diplomacy, proceeded to speak of the clever foundations he had laid for an alibi.  Insisting that Mr. Dobb was not within a hundred miles of Shorehaven, he had admitted to Miss Radling that the remaining members of the “Jane Gladys” crew now resided in the town.  This, he suggested to her, might explain matters.  Confusion of identity, he had reminded her, was of frequent occurrence among the mercantile marine.

“‘But I see ’Orace with my very own eyes,’ she says, and goes on to describe the very clothes you’re wearing, ’Orace,” continued Mr. Clark.  “‘Why,’ says I, ‘that just shows ’ow wrong you are!  Them clothes is the clothes worn by Peter Lock on ’igh days and ’olidays,’ I says.”

Mr. Lock uttered an exclamation denoting surprise.

“That’s it, that’s it?” approved Mr. Dobb.  “I’ll lend you these ’ere clothes, Peter, for a hour or two, if you takes care of ’em, and you can meet ’er in them and prove old Sam was right.”

“Anyway, you can try to,” said Mr. Clark, soberly.  “I must say she didn’t look altogether convinced, as it might be.”

But Mr. Dobb, already excitedly divesting himself of his coat and waistcoat was paying no heed.  And Mr. Lock, delicately massaging the nape of his neck with a forefinger, was immersed in thought.

“Wait a bit!” he requested, coldly, at last.  “Seems to me, if I don’t help you now, ’Orace, you’re in a tight corner?”

“Ah, I’m lucky to ’ave a true friend like you, Peter!” babbled Mr. Dobb.  “Wonder if they’ve got a outhouse they can lend us for a few minutes?”

“And you’ve got a motto, too, ain’t you, ’Orace?” went on Mr. Lock, in steely accents.  “‘Strictly business’—that’s what has been your motto ever since you went into your shop, ain’t it?  Oh, you’ve drove it home to us often enough when it’s been convenient to you and ill-convenient to us.  Well, my motto’s going to be ‘strictly business’ now!” he ended, firmly.

“Meaning?” invited Mr. Dobb, ceasing to struggle with a bootlace.

“Meaning I don’t borrer clothes from nobody to help ’em out of trouble.  See?  If you want me to help you, you’ve got to give me that rig-out.  See?  Otherwise I shouldn’t dream of putting it on for a single moment.”

Ten minutes later Mr. Dobb and Mr. Lock made an exchange of vesture in an outhouse.  Mr. Dobb somewhat huffily declined to agree with Mr. Tridge and Mr. Clark in their openly expressed opinion that Mr. Lock looked a real toff in the hirsute garments.

“I’ll stroll along with Peter and ’ave a look for Miss Radling,” said Mr. Tridge, as the quartet took their places in the ferry-boat.  “I’ll be able to back him up by saying you don’t live anywhere in these parts.  As for you, you’d better stay at ’ome while she’s in the town, ’Orace.”

“Stay at ’ome?  I’m going straight to bed,” declared Mr. Dobb, “and I ain’t coming down again till the coast is quite clear, neither!”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Tridge.  “You leave it to me and Peter.  We’ll convince ’er all right.”

That same evening Mr. Dobb lay fretfully in bed, suffering from a vague ailment which, he averred, was not serious enough to demand a doctor, but too serious to permit of Mrs. Dobb’s ministrations as a nurse.  In these circumstances, two visitors who called to see Mr. Dobb were about to be sent away by his wife, when Mr. Dobb, who happened to be standing at his open bedroom door, gave orders that they should ascend to his apartment.

“Well,” he asked, breathlessly, as Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock entered, “’ave you convinced ’er?  Is she gone?”

“But you’ve got to make ’er believe it!” wrathfully snapped Mr. Dobb.

“I doubt if she’s the sort you can make do anything,” said Mr. Lock.

“A most determined young person,” said Mr. Tridge.  “When she makes up ’er mind, I should say—”

“She ain’t half bitter against you, ’Orace,” remarked Mr. Lock.  “You ought to hear the things she said about you!  What was that bit she told us about the bag of sweets, Joe?”

“I don’t want to ’ear about sweets!” exclaimed Mr. Dobb, impatiently.  “I want to ’ear about ’er plans!”

“Well, she said she was going to try for two ’undred and fifty,” replied Mr. Tridge.  “Soon as ever she knew where to find you, she said, she was coming round to—”

Mr. Dobb, in an excess of nervous depression, dived beneath the bedclothes, moaning faintly.

“This I will say,” maintained Mr. Lock.  “Them chaps on the ‘Raven’ have gone a bit beyond a joke this time.  Well, so-long, ’Orace!  Keep smiling!”

“We’ll do our best for you,” promised Mr. Tridge. “We’ll keep on telling ’er she was mistook this afternoon.”

“You keep on letting ’er see you in them clothes, Peter, till she sees she’s wrong,” directed Mr. Dobb, reappearing.

“’Ere!” croaked Mr. Dobb, in alarm; and then, at sight of Mr. Lock’s humorous eyelid, he smiled wanly.  “You’re a artful one, Peter!” he stated.

“I am!” agreed Mr. Lock; and followed Mr. Tridge down the stairs.

Next evening, when Mr. Lock again called to report progress, Mr. Dobb was still clinging to the sanctuary of bed.

“Well, you ain’t found me yet, then?” he asked, with effort to be cheerful.

“Not yet,” admitted Mr. Lock, grinning.  “We’ve been looking all over the place for you, too!”

“Ain’t she losing ’eart yet?”

“I can’t say she is,” returned Mr. Lock, sorrowfully.  “It only seems to make ’er firmer in mind.  If you only knew how the soles of my feet was aching!”

“She still thinks I’m about, eh?”

“She’s sure of it.  She says she ain’t going to give up looking for you till she’s found you, if it takes ten years!”

“There’s hobstinicy!” growled Mr. Dobb, dashed.

“One thing, she ain’t going to find you as long as I’m helping her to look,” said Mr. Lock.  “So it’ll be a long job, anyway.”

“Thank you for nothing!  I suppose you fancies yourself, walking about in all them la-de-da clothes with a attractive young female?” harshly suggested Mr. Dobb.

“I do,” said Mr. Lock.

“I—I wonder, Peter,” remarked Mr. Dobb, sitting up suddenly and striving to sound casual—“I wonder you don’t take up with ’er yourself!”

“Walking about in a suit of clothes you’ve ’ad give to you don’t cost much,” contended Mr. Dobb.

“Ah, but you can’t set up a home on a suit of clothes!” pointed out Mr. Lock, regretfully; and then he laughed quite merrily.  “Why, I hardly know the young lady, either!”

“A nice, pretty, well-spoken girl she is, too!” said Mr. Dobb.  “Make any man a good wife, she would.  I tell you straight, if I wasn’t married—”

“I must say, I can’t make out how you had the heart to do it, ’Orace,” observed Mr. Lock.

“Neither can I, now!  Serves me right!  I—I couldn’t ever be really worthy of ’er.  A nice, smart, good-looking young fellow, that’s ’oo she deserves for a ’usband.  A young fellow just like you, Peter,” he ended softly.

“Me?  Oh, I dunno!” murmured Mr. Lock, in confused modesty.

“Well, I do!” cried Mr. Dobb.  “You take my advice, my boy, and go in and win!”

“And leave everything nice and clear for you, eh?” asked Mr. Lock.

“I—I wasn’t thinking about myself,” said Mr. Dobb. “I ain’t so selfish as all that, Peter.”

“Anyway, what’s the good of talking?” demanded Mr. Lock, irritably.  “I can’t afford to set up house-keeping.  Where am I to get the furniture from for a start off?”

“Why, you can run up a bill with me!” quickly proffered Mr. Dobb.

“That ain’t my idea, starting married life in debt.”

“Mind you, I wouldn’t mind taking up with her,” said Mr. Lock.  “Looie-Miss Radling—she’s just my sort, and I don’t mind admitting that I’ve thought a lot about her since I met her yesterday.  But—”

“And—and to think that you was a ’ardy British mariner once!” urgently cried Mr. Dobb.  “You go in and win!”

“I reckon it’ll cost me all of fifty quid to set up a home,” said Mr. Lock, gazing squarely at Mr. Dobb.  For a long time Mr. Dobb defiantly held Mr. Lock’s regard, and then he glanced away.

“And, after all,” added Mr. Lock, softly, “it’ll come cheaper for you, ’Orace.”

“I see what you’re after!” rasped Mr. Dobb.  “Call that friendship?”

“No,” said Mr. Lock, honestly, “I don’t!  I’m a sort of pupil of yours, ’Orace, and I calls it ‘strictly business’!  However, we were only talking, after all.  Good-night, old sport, and sleep well!”

Two days elapsed.  Mr. Dobb, attaining sufficient convalescence, had left his couch and spent most of his time behind his window curtain, watching the traffic of the street in considerable trepidation.  And whenever the shop-bell jangled Mr. Dobb crept silently to the head of the stairs and stood there to listen with bated breath till persuaded that there was no cause for alarm.

Mr. Lock had not visited him once during those two days, and the only news he had derived of that gentleman was from Mr. Tridge, who, paying a brief visit, let fall the information that Mr. Lock and Miss Radling had been observed together at a matinée performance at the local kinema theatre.

“Thought you’d like to know,” said Mr. Lock, entering the room and carefully closing the door, “me and Looie have fixed it all up this very afternoon.”

“No!” cried Mr. Dobb, joyously.  “Well, there’s quick work!”

“I see I was wrong now to suggest about that fifty quid to you, ’Orace,” said Mr. Lock, penitently.

“Don’t mention it!” begged Mr. Dobb.  “I never give it another thought.”

“Yes, I know now I was wrong,” repeated Mr. Lock.  “Looie pointed it out to me soon as ever I told ’er.”

“Ah, a nice, sensible, right-minded girl!”

“Yes; as she says, if we wants money to set up housekeeping with, let’s wait till after—”

“After what?” asked Mr. Dobb, as Mr. Lock stopped.

“Why, till after she’s got her breach of promise damages out of you.  She reckons on at least a hundred and fifty.”

“But—but now she’s hengaged to you she’s got no claim on me!”

“They’ll only have your word at the court that she’s hengaged to me, ’Orace.  We ain’t told no one else yet,” observed Mr. Lock, happily.  “By the way, I’m bringing her round to see you to-morrow.”

“She’ll never get a hundred and fifty pounds out of me!”

Mr. Dobb, with his hands clasped at the back of that garment he euphemistically described as a dressing-gown, stalked moodily about the bedroom for a few moments.  The voice of Mrs. Dobb, engaged in a trifling dispute with a neighbour, came shrilly up to him and he shivered.

“All right, I’m beat!” he yielded.  “Talk about nourishing a viper!”

“I’ll call round to-morrow morning and go to the bank with you, ’Orace,” said Mr. Lock.

And it was so.

In rather less than six weeks’ time the wedding of Mr. Peter Lock and Miss Louise Radling was solemnized.

The occurrence is still remembered in Shorehaven, very largely on account of the extreme height and niggardly circumference of Mr. Samuel Clark’s top-hat, and for the remarkable exhibition of agility given by the best man, Mr. Joseph Tridge, out in the High Street, towards the close of the festivities.

Mr. Horace Dobb, an old friend of the bridegroom and bride, attended the ceremony, in company with Mrs. Horace Dobb.  Many people subsequently expressed the opinion that Mr. Dobb took the affair far too seriously for a mere guest.

It was just before Mr. and Mrs. Peter Lock were setting forth on their honeymoon that the newly fledged husband summoned Mr. Dobb aside.

“You must be sure to come and see us in our little ’ome when we come back, ’Orace,” said Mr. Lock, fondly.  “I’m sure no one’s got a better right among our pals to sit on them tables and chairs—”

“I just want to tell you something, though.  You know that motto of yours what you’ve got painted on a board hanging in your shop?  ‘Strictly business,’ it says, don’t it?  Well, mottoes is like curses—they come home to roost sometimes!”

“Meaning?” loftily queried Mr. Dobb.

“Why, I felt so sorry for Looie when she come down to the old ‘Jane Gladys’ to ask for you, and you’d jilted her, that I—I got sort of writing to her to cheer her up; and before long we got engaged.  Oh, four or five months ago it must have been, though we didn’t tell anybody!  You see, I’d got an idea up my sleeve, and I was only waiting till my wages was raised.”

“Then—then—then really she was hengaged to you when she come to Shore’aven?” queried Mr. Dobb, in a stifled voice.

“She was.  Why, it was me who managed the whole thing.  It was me who wrote and told her to come to Shore’aven.  It was me who told her what to say to Sam and Joe.”

“You—you—you—” breathed Mr. Dobb, irately; and then became aware of the approach of Mrs. Dobb.  “You mind you don’t miss your train,” he finished, lamely.

Late that same evening Mr. Dobb took a small lettered board off a nail in his shop.  In grim silence he surveyed its legend of “Strictly Business!” . . .

Mrs. Dobb, coming down next morning to light the kitchen fire, found that self-same panel, neatly chopped into very small pieces, lying ready to her hand in the fender.

THE END