only to the earl and the family lawyer, and confided to the heir at
midnight on his twenty-first birthday. Jimmy had come across the
story in corners of the papers all over the States, from New York to
Onehorseville, Iowa. He looked with interest at the light-haired
young man, the latest depository of the awful secret. It was
popularly supposed that the heir, after hearing it, never smiled
again; but it did not seem to have affected the present Lord Dreever
to any great extent. His gurgling laugh was drowning the orchestra.
Probably, Jimmy thought, when the family lawyer had told the light-
haired young man the secret, the latter's comment had been, "No,
really? By Jove, I say, you know!"

Jimmy paid his bill, and got up to go.

It was a perfect summer night--too perfect for bed. Jimmy strolled
on to the Embankment, and stood leaning over the balustrade, looking
across the river at the vague, mysterious mass of buildings on the
Surrey side.

He must have been standing there for some time, his thoughts far
away, when a voice spoke at his elbow.

"I say. Excuse me, have you--Hullo!" It was his light-haired
lordship of Dreever. "I say, by Jove, why we're always meeting!"

A tramp on a bench close by stirred uneasily in his sleep as the
gurgling laugh rippled the air.

"Been looking at the water?" inquired Lord Dreever. "I have. I often
do. Don't you think it sort of makes a chap feel--oh, you know. Sort