"If you come to my room I'll give you the 25 Pounds now, if you like."

"Oh, that's all right," exclaimed Steelman impulsively;
"you mustn't think I don't ----"

"That's all right. Don't you say any more about it. You'd best have
the stuff to-night to show your mate."

"Perhaps so; he's a suspicious fool, but I made a bargain with him
about our last cheque. He can hang on to the stuff, and I can't.
If I'd been on my own I'd have blued it a week ago. Tell you what I'll do --
we'll call our share (Smith's and mine) twenty quid. You take the odd fiver
for your trouble."

"That looks fair enough. We'll call it twenty guineas to you and your mate.
We'll want him, you know."

In his own and Smith's room Steelman thoughtfully counted
twenty-one sovereigns on the toilet-table cover, and left them there
in a pile.

He stretched himself, scratched behind his ear, and blinked
at the money abstractedly. Then he asked, as if the thought
just occurred to him: "By the way, Smith, do you see those yellow boys?"

Smith saw. He had been sitting on the bed with a studiously
vacant expression. It was Smith's policy not to seem, except by request,
to take any interest in, or, in fact, to be aware of anything unusual
that Steelman might be doing -- from patching his pants to reading poetry.