"Ha-ha!" laughed Holmes. "It is evident that you know nothing of the laws
of trade nowadays. Don't pay!"

"But how can we?" asked Raleigh.

"The method is simple. You haven't anything to pay with," returned Holmes.
"Let him sue. Suppose he gets a verdict. You haven't anything he can
attach--if you have, make it over to your wives or your fiancées."

"Is that honest?" asked Hamlet, shaking his head doubtfully.

"It's business," said Holmes.

"But suppose he wants an advance payment?" queried Hamlet.

"Give him a check drawn to his own order. He'll have to endorse it when he
deposits it, and that will make him responsible," laughed Holmes.

"What a simple thing when you understand it!" commented Raleigh.

"Very," said Holmes. "Business is getting by slow degrees to be an exact
science. It reminds me of the Brighton mystery, in which I played a modest
part some ten years ago, when I first took up ferreting as a profession. I
was sitting one night in my room at one of the Brighton hotels, which
shall be nameless. I never give the name of any of the hotels at which I
stop, because it might give offence to the proprietors of other hotels,
with the result that my books would be excluded from sale therein. Suffice
it to say that I was spending an early summer Sunday at Brighton with my
friend Watson. We had dined well, and were enjoying our evening smoke
together upon a small balcony overlooking the water, when there came a