"Now, where's this money?" asked Seepidge, when they were seated round

a little table.

"There's a fellow called Bones----" began Mr. Webber.

"Oh, him!" interrupted Mr. Morris, in disgust. "Good Heavens! You're

not going to try him again!"

"We'd have got him before if you hadn't been so clever," said Webber.

"I tell you, he's rolling in money. He's just moved into a new flat in

Devonshire Street that can't cost him less than six hundred a year."

"How do you know this?" asked the interested Morris.

"Well," confessed Webber, without embarrassment, "I've been working

solo on him, and I thought I'd be able to pull the job off myself."

"That's a bit selfish," reproached Morris, shaking his head. "I didn't

expect this from you, Webbie."

"Never mind what you expected," said Webber, unperturbed. "I tell you

I tried it. I've been nosing round his place, getting information from

his servants, and I've learned a lot about him. Mind you," said Mr.

Webber, "I'm not quite certain how to use what I know to make money.

If I'd known that, I shouldn't have told you two chaps anything about

it. But I've got an idea that this chap Bones is a bit sensitive on a

certain matter, and Cully Tring, who's forgotten more about human men

than I ever knew, told me that, if you can get a mug on his sensitive

spot, you can bleed him to death. Now, three heads are better than

one, and I think, if we get together, we'll lift enough stuff from Mr.

Blinking Bones to keep us at Monte Carlo for six months."

"Then," said Mr. Seepidge impressively, "let us put our 'eads together."

In emotional moments that enterprising printer was apt to overlook the

box where the little "h's" were kept.

Bones had indeed moved into the intellectual atmosphere of Devonshire

Street. He had hired a flat of great beauty and magnificence, with

lofty rooms and distempered walls and marble chimney-pieces, for all

the world like those rooms in the catalogues of furniture dealers which

so admirably show off the fifty-pound drawing-room suite offered on the

easiest terms.

"My dear old thing," he said, describing his new splendours to

Hamilton, "you ought to see the jolly old bathroom!"

"What do you want a bath for?" asked Hamilton innocently. "You've only

got the place for three years."

"Now, dear old thing, don't be humorous," said Bones severely. "Don't

be cheap, dear old comic one."

"The question is," said Hamilton, "why the dickens do you want a new

flat? Your old flat was quite a palatial establishment. Are you

thinking of setting up housekeeping?"

Bones turned very red. In his embarrassment he stood first upon one

leg and then the other, lifting his eyebrows almost to the roof of his

head to let in his monocle, and lifted them as violently to let it out

again.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024