I took him to my home in a taxi.  On the way I succeeded in diverting his mind from any possible awkward questions by relating details of my sad story until I could see the poor fellow was on the verge of tears.  For those interested in criminology I may say that all the best criminal devices are not necessarily planned beforehand to the end; they are begun any-old-how and the genius consists in carrying the thing through afterwards, much the same as running a great war.  I recked not what might occur after I had nefariously induced the poor innocent to install the machine; perhaps I had some vague idea that the Englishman’s house is his castle, though this seems ridiculous when considered calmly.  However, what matter these psychological dissections?  He came with me unsuspecting, and I piloted him out of the taxi without his ever noticing the name of the street even.  How could I have foreseen?  Well, anyhow I didn’t, or I shouldn’t have tipped him on the stairs.

With many nods and winks I gave my wife the hint how I had managed it, and we went about the house whispering and hobnobbing in odd corners like a couple of conspirators while he began the work of installation.

Then the first dreadful moment came.  Suddenly he addressed me by my name, with a certain suspicious interrogation in his tone.

“Who?” I asked blandly, going as red as a turkey-cock, of course; I never can help it.

He looked surprised and I plunged heavily, giving the first name I could think of, which happened to be the one he had mentioned in the taxi—­his own, in fact.  He looked still more suspicious and I knew it had been a mistake, especially as close to where he had been working were two envelopes addressed to me.  I am certain that if my wife had not called me at that moment I should have gone permanently purple all over.

When I got back (I tried to get my wife to go, but she said she would rather I went, and that I wasn’t really as red as I felt)—­when I got back I could see that it had dawned upon him that I had wheedled him there without his knowing exactly where he was, and that he was determined not to be had.  He asked me to sign for the installation.

Alas, I could not do that.  It was only then that I realised that I am constitutionally honest; besides they might find me out.

We both tried to turn his thoughts to pleasanter topics.  Perhaps asking him to have a glass of port was a mistake there are times when even bribery is bad policy.  Briefly, after a mumbled remark that “there was something fishy,” he refused to leave the box.  Dry-eyed we watched him take it all down and depart in a dudgeon.  We were left with a vision of shameless visitors with their twopenny calls and interminable bills running up even while we were away on our holidays.

“Let us,” I said hoarsely—­“let us go and look at our child; she is all we have left now.”

Moodily we turned to go upstairs.  In the hall we stopped dead.  Upon the floor was the wretched paper which my Victorian conscience and my twentieth-century caution had prevented me from signing.