and I s'pose that's how he came to fall overboard."

He emptied his mug, and then, accompanied by Mr. Wright, fetched his sea-
chest from the boarding-house where he was staying, and took it to the
young man's lodgings. Fortunately for the latter's pocket the chest
contained a good best suit and boots, and the only expenses incurred were
for a large, soft felt hat and a gilded watch and chain. Dressed in his
best, with a bulging pocket-book in his breast-pocket, he set out with
Mr. Wright on the following evening to make his first call.

Mr. Wright, who was also in his best clothes, led the way to a small
tobacconist's in a side street off the Mile End Road, and, raising his
hat with some ceremony, shook hands with a good-looking young woman who
stood behind the counter: Mr. Kemp, adopting an air of scornful dignity
intended to indicate the possession of great wealth, waited.

"This is my uncle," said Mr. Wright, speaking rapidly, "from New Zealand,
the one I spoke to you about. He turned up last night, and you might
have knocked me down with a feather. The last person in the world I
expected to see."

Mr. Kemp, in a good rolling voice, said, "Good evening, miss; I hope you
are well," and, subsiding into a chair, asked for a cigar. His surprise
when he found that the best cigar they stocked only cost sixpence almost
assumed the dimensions of a grievance.

"It'll do to go on with," he said, smelling it suspiciously. "Have you
got change for a fifty-pound note?"

Miss Bradshaw, concealing her surprise by an effort, said that she would