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to have been sent to your son, who, as you know, is our honoured friend."

      "I protest …" interrupted Professor Higginson loudly.

      "At your peril!" retorted Melba.

      "You will do well, Mr. Brassington, to let me finish what I have to say," continued Jimmy. "I say your son, our honoured friend, as you know well—only too well! These three cheques are your concern, not ours. No further cheque has been drawn, and on the fourth cheque form, Mr. Brassington, you will be good enough to sign your name. You will make it out to James McAuley—a small c and a big A, if you please; an ey, not an a—in your letters you did not do me the courtesy to spell my name as I sign it. You will then hand me the instrument, and I will settle with my friend."

      At the words "my friend" he waved courteously to Melba, gave a ridiculous little bow, which in his youthful folly he imagined to be dignified.

      The Professor sat stolidly and said nothing. His thoughts hurried confusedly within him, and the one that ran fastest was, "I am in a hole!"

      "I do assure you, gentlemen," he said at last, "that there is some great mistake. I have no doubt that—that a Mr. Brassington owes you the money, no doubt at all. And perhaps you were even justified in the very strong steps you took to recover it. I should be the last to blame you." (The liar!) "But as I am not Mr. Brassington, but, if you want to know, Professor Higginson, of the Guelph University, I cannot oblige you."

      When the Professor had thus delivered himself there was a further silence, only interrupted by Melba's addressing to him a very offensive epithet. "Swine!" he said.

      "Are we to understand, Mr. Brassington," said Jimmy, when he had considered the matter, "that after all that you have said you refuse to sign? Did you imagine" (this with rising anger in his voice) "that we would compromise for a smaller sum?"

      "I tell you I am not Mr. Brassington!" answered the Psychologist tartly.

      "Oh!" returned Jimmy, now thoroughly aroused and as naturally as could be, "and you aren't wearing Mr. Brassington's clothes, Brassington, are you? And this isn't Mr. Brassington's cheque-book, is it, Brassington? And you 're not a confounded old liar as well as a cursed puritanical thief? Now, look here, if you don't sign now, you 'll be kept here till you do. You 'll be locked up without food, except just the bread and water to keep you alive; and if you trust to your absence being noticed, I can tell you it won't be. We know all about that. You were going to Belgium for a week, weren't you, by the night train to London? You were taking no luggage, because you were going to pick up a bag at your London office, as you always do on these business journeys. You were going on business, and I only hope the business will wait. Oh, we know all about it, Brassington! We have a clear week ahead of us, and you won't only get bread and water in that week; and I don't suppose anybody would bother if we made the week ten days."

      I have already mentioned in the course of this painful narrative the name of the Infernal Power. My reader will be the less surprised to follow the process of Professor Higginson's mind in this terrible crux. He sat there internally collapsed and externally nothing very grand. His two masters, stern and immovable, watched him from beyond the table with its one candle. It was deep night. There was no sound save the lashing of the storm against the window-panes.

      He first considered his dear home (which was a pair of rooms in a lodging in Tugela Street, quite close to his work). Then there came into his mind the prospect of sleepless nights in a bare room, of bread and water, and worse. …

      What was "worse"?

      His resolution sank and sank. The process of his thought continued. The eyes of the two young men, hateful and determined, almost hypnotised him.

      If the money of this ridiculous John Brassington, whoever he might be, was there in his pocket, he would stand firm. He hoped he would stand firm. But after all, it was not money. It was only a bit of paper. He would be able to make the thing right. … He was very ignorant of such things, but he knew it took some little time to clear a cheque. … He remembered someone telling him that it took three days, and incidentally he grotesquely remembered the same authority telling him that every cheque cost the bank sevenpence. … The rope hurt damnably, and he was a man who could not bear to miss his sleep, it made him ill. … And he was feeling very ill already. He could carefully note the number of the cheque, anyhow. Yes, he could do that. He had this man Brassington's address. He had the name of the bank. It was on the cheques. He would have the courage to expose the whole business in the morning. He would stop that cheque. He clearly remembered the Senate of the University having made a mistake two years before and how the cheque was stopped. … It was a perfectly easy business. … Of course, the actual signing of another man's name is an unpleasant thing for the fingers to do, but that is only nervousness—next door to superstition. One must be guided by reason. Ultimately it would do no harm at all, for the cheque would never be cleared.

      Professor Higginson leant lovingly upon that word "cleared." It had a technical, salutary sound. It was his haven of refuge. Cheques had to go up to London, hadn't they? and to go to a place called a Clearing House? He knew that much, though economics were not his department of learning. He knew that much, and he was rather proud of it—as Professors are of knowing something outside their beat.

      While the Mystery of Evil was thus pressing its frontal assault on poor Professor Higginson's soul, that soul was suddenly attacked in flank by a brilliant thought: the cheque would enable him to trace his tormentors!

      Come, that really was a brilliant thought! He was prouder of himself than ever. He would be actually aiding justice if he signed! The police could always track down someone where there was paper concerned. No one could escape the hands of British Law if he had once given himself away in a written document!

      This flank attack of the Evil One determined the Philosopher. In a subdued voice he broke the long silence. He said—

      "Give me the pen!"

      Jimmy solemnly dipped the pen in the ink and handed it to him, not releasing the chequebook, but tearing out the cheque form for him to sign; and as he did so the unseen Serpent smiled. In a hand as bold as he could assume Professor Higginson deliberately wrote at the bottom right hand-corner the fatal words "John Brassington."

      He was beginning to fill in the amount, when to his astonishment the cheque was snatched from his hands, while Jimmy thundered out—

      "Do you suppose, sir, that you can deceive us in such a childish way as that? Does a man ever sign his cheque like a copybook?"

      He glared at the signature.

      "It 's faked! That 's no more your signature, Old Brassington, than it 's mine!" he shouted. "That 's how you write."

      With the words he pulled a note from his pocket and tossed it to the unhappy man.

      Melba made himself pleasant by an interjection—

      "What a vile old shuffler it is!" he said.

      And Mr. Higginson saw written on the note, dated but a week before—

      James Macaulay, Esq.,

      "Sir,

      "I will have no further correspondence with you upon the matter.

      "I am,

       "Your obedient Servant,

       "J. Brassington."

      It was a strong, hard but rapid hand, the hand of a man who had done much clerk's work in his youth. It had certainly no resemblance to the signature which the Psychologist had appended to the cheque form, and that form now lay torn into twenty pieces by the angry Jimmy, who had also torn up the counterfoil and presented him with another cheque.

      "I can't do it, gentlemen!" he said firmly—it was indeed too true—"I can't do it!"

      Melba jumped up suddenly.

      "I 'm not going to waste any more time with the old blighter!" he said shrilly. "Come on, Jimmy!" and Jimmy yielded.

      They

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