him out! He had a vision of infuriated Butteridges.... Suppose
after all he owned up? Pretended it was their misunderstanding?
He began to scheme devices for selling the secret and
circumventing Butteridge.

What should he ask for the thing? Somehow twenty thousand pounds
struck him as about the sum indicated.

He fell into that despondency that lies in wait in the small
hours. He had got too big a job on--too big a job....

Memories swamped his scheming.

"Where was I this time last night?"

He recapitulated his evenings tediously and lengthily. Last
night he had been up above the clouds in Butteridge's balloon.
He thought of the moment when he dropped through them and saw the
cold twilight sea close below. He still remembered that
disagreeable incident with a nightmare vividness. And the night
before he and Grubb had been looking for cheap lodgings at
Littlestone in Kent. How remote that seemed now. It might be
years ago. For the first time he thought of his fellow Desert
Dervish, left with the two red-painted bicycles on Dymchurch
sands. "'E won't make much of a show of it, not without me.
Any'ow 'e did 'ave the treasury--such as it was--in his pocket!"...
The night before that was Bank Holiday night and they had sat
discussing their minstrel enterprise, drawing up a programme and
rehearsing steps. And the night before was Whit Sunday. "Lord!"
cried Bert, "what a doing that motor-bicycle give me!" He