“And suppose I refuse?”

“Ah! but you wouldn’t—­you couldn’t,” the major said suavely.  “Ged, sir, I haven’t known ye long, but I have far too high an opinion of ye to suppose ye could do anything so foolish.  If you refuse, your speculation is thrown away.  There’s no help for it.  Bedad, it would be painful for me to have to blow the gaff; but you know the old saying, that ‘charity begins at home.’  You must sell your knowledge at the best market.”

Girdlestone thought intently for a minute or two, with his great eyebrows drawn down over his little restless eyes.

“You said to my son,” he remarked at last, “that you were too honourable to embark in our undertaking.  Do you consider it honourable to make use of knowledge gained in confidence for the purpose of extorting money?”

“Me dear sir,” answered the major, holding up his hand deprecatingly, “you put me in the painful position of having to explain meself in plain words.  If I saw a man about to do a murther, I should think nothing of murthering him.  If I saw a pickpocket at work, I’d pick his pocket, and think it good fun to do it.  Now, this little business of yours is—­ well, we’ll say unusual, and if what I do seems a little unusual too, it’s to be excused.  Ye can’t throw stones at every one, me boy, and then be surprised when some one throws one at you.  You bite the diamond holders, d’ye see, and I take a little nibble at you.  It’s all fair enough.”

The merchant reflected again for some moments.  “Suppose we agree to purchasing your silence at this price,” he said, “what guarantee have we that you will not come and extort more money, or that you may not betray our secret after all?”

“The honour of a soldier and a gintleman,” answered the major, rising and tapping his chest with two fingers of his right hand.

A slight sneer played over Girdlestone’s pale face, but he made no remark.  “We are in your power,” he said, and have no resource but to submit to your terms.  You said five hundred pounds?”

“A thousand,” the major answered cheerfully.

“It’s a great sum of money.”

“Deuce of a lot!” said the veteran cordially.

“Well, you shall have it.  I will communicate with you.”  Girdlestone rose as if to terminate the interview.

The major made no remark, but he showed his white teeth again, and tapped Mr. Girdlestone’s cheque-book with the silver head of his walking-stick.

“What!  Now?”

“Yes, now.”

The two looked at each other for a moment and the merchant sat down again and scribbled out a cheque, which he tossed to his companion.  The latter looked it over carefully, took a fat little pocket-book from the depths of his breast pocket, and having placed the precious slip of paper in it, laboriously pushed it back into its receptacle.  Then he very slowly and methodically picked up his jaunty curly-brimmed