them into his pocket noiselessly. Mr. Emblem returned to his own chair
and thought nothing of the keys for an hour and a half by the clock,
and during this period James was out on business. When Mr. Emblem
remembered his keys, he felt for them in their usual place and missed
them, and then began searching about and cried out to James that he
had lost his bunch of keys.

"Why, sir," said James, bringing them to him, after a little search,
and with a very red face, "here they are; you must have left them on
my table."

And in this way the job was done.




CHAPTER III.

IRIS THE HERALD.


By a somewhat remarkable coincidence it was on this very evening that
Iris first made the acquaintance of her pupil, Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot.
These coincidences, I believe, happen oftener in real life than they
do even on the stage, where people are always turning up at the very
nick of time and the critical moment.

I need little persuasion to make me believe that the first meeting of
Arnold Arbuthnot and Iris, on the very evening when her cousin was
opening matters with the Foxy one, was nothing short of Providential.