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186 remember hearing him make a speech once at a City dinner. And what charge have you to prefer, Sir Charles, against my cousin?'

'Your cousin?' Charles cried. 'This is Colonel Clay, the notorious sharper!'

The attaché smiled a gentlemanly and superior smile. 'This is Colonel Clay,' he answered, 'of the Bengal Staff Corps.'

It began to strike us there was something wrong somewhere.

'But he has cheated me, all the same,' Charles said—'at Nice two years ago, and many times since; and this very day he has tricked me out of two thousand pounds in French bank-notes, which he has now about him!'

The Colonel was speechless. But the attaché laughed. 'What he has done to-day I don't know,' he said; 'but if it's as apocryphal as what you say he did two years ago, you've a thundering bad case, sir; for he was then in India, and I was out there, visiting him.'

'Where are the two thousand pounds?' Charles cried. 'Why, you've got them in your hand! You're holding the envelope!'

The Colonel produced it. 'This envelope,' he said, 'was left with me by the man with short stiff hair, who came just before you, and who announced himself as Sir Charles Vandrift. He said he was interested in tea in Assam, and wanted me to join the board of directors of some bogus company.