foreign to my nature to crow over the house I serve, but I feel it a kind
of solemn duty to ask you to read that."

Vendale read as follows:--"Note, respecting the Swiss champagne. An
irregularity has been discovered in the last consignment received from
the firm of Defresnier and Co." Vendale stopped, and referred to a
memorandum-book by his side. "That was in Mr. Wilding's time," he said.
"The vintage was a particularly good one, and he took the whole of it.
The Swiss champagne has done very well, hasn't it?"

"I don't say it's done badly," answered the Cellarman. "It may have got
sick in our customers' bins, or it may have bust in our customers' hands.
But I don't say it's done badly with us."

Vendale resumed the reading of the note: "We find the number of the cases
to be quite correct by the books. But six of them, which present a
slight difference from the rest in the brand, have been opened, and have
been found to contain a red wine instead of champagne. The similarity in
the brands, we suppose, caused a mistake to be made in sending the
consignment from Neuchatel. The error has not been found to extend
beyond six cases."

"Is that all!" exclaimed Vendale, tossing the note away from him.

Joey Ladle's eye followed the flying morsel of paper drearily.

"I'm glad to see you take it easy, sir," he said. "Whatever happens, it
will be always a comfort to you to remember that you took it easy at
first. Sometimes one mistake leads to another. A man drops a bit of
orange-peel on the pavement by mistake, and another man treads on it by