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 raised his voice until you might have heard him on the "third" of the hotel.

"I say that I will not leave the stone," he repeated. "Return it to me or pay me! I will wait here until I receive the money: I will not be put off"

He went on like this, just as foreigners will, and really, at one time, I thought he would send for the police on the spot. What with his talk and the talk of Sir Nicolas, who argued and pleaded until he was black in the face, we might have been in a brawl at a fair. But the hullaballoo saved us, for they were in the very middle of it when the idea came to me—

"Offer him a check on the Bank of England," whispered I to Sir Nicolas in a pause; "he'll take that quick enough—a check to be cashed this day week, if we buy."

I said the words, and acting upon them, I pulled out my check-book—for we always had a bit of an account at the Bank—and wrote a check for ten thousand pounds, signing it "Nicolas Babbington Steele," my master's full name. Then I passed it over, without comment, to Lobmeyr.

But I knew that he would take it, for an Englishman's check is still as good as gold in Vienna; and five minutes after the idea came to me, he was out of the hotel, and my master was capering about the room like a village lad with a sugar-stick.