memory, and understanding. There you are; now do you two witness."

* * * * *

It was night, and King capital, in the shape of Mr. Meeson, sat alone at
dinner in his palatial dining-room at Pompadour. Dinner was over, the
powdered footman had departed with stately tread, and the head butler was
just placing the decanters of richly coloured wine before the solitary
lord of all. The dinner had been a melancholy failure. Dish after dish,
the cost of any one of which would have fed a poor child for a month, had
been brought up and handed to the master only to be found fault with and
sent away. On that night Mr. Meeson had no appetite.

"Johnson," he said to the butler, when he was sure the footman could not
hear him, "has Mr. Eustace been here?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Has he gone?"

"Yes, Sir. He came to fetch his things, and then went away in a cab."

"Where to?"

"I don't know, Sir. He told the man to drive to Birmingham."

"Did he leave any message?"

"Yes, Sir, he bade me say that you should not be troubled with him again;
but that he was sorry that you had parted from him in anger."