"Why don't you do it." said Albert, nastily. "Five pounds is nothing
to you."

"Why should I?"

"Ah! Why should you?"

It would be useless to assert that Mr. Potter's tone was friendly. It
stung Roland. It seemed to him that Muriel was looking at him in an
unpleasantly contemptuous manner.

In some curious fashion, without doing anything to merit it, he had
apparently become an object of scorn and derision to the party.

"All right, then, I will," he said suddenly.

"Easy enough to talk," said Albert.

Roland strode with a pale but determined face to the spot where M.
Feriaud, beaming politely, was signing a picture post-card.

Some feeling of compunction appeared to come to Muriel at the eleventh
hour.

"Don't let him," she cried.

But Brother Frank was made of sterner stuff. This was precisely the
sort of thing which, in his opinion, made for a jolly afternoon.

For years he had been waiting for something of this kind. He was