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 secretary, and to this young woman he committed the charge of answering the letters which his advertisement had drawn forth. The answer was to be the same to all:

“Call at 17 Hare Court, Temple, between 11 and 1.”

And the dates fixed for such calling were arranged to allow about fifty interviews daily for the next week or two, for Michael was a bold man as well as a lazy one. The next morning, faultlessly dressed, with carnations in his buttonhole, he composed himself in his pleasant oak-furnished room to await his first batch of callers.

They came. And Michael, strong in his unswerving determination not to forfeit his chance of inheriting the £15,000 a year left him under his mad uncle’s mad will, saw them all, one after the other.

But he did not like any of them. They were old; that he did not mind—it was, indeed, of the essence of the contract. But they were frowsy, too, with reticules of scarred brownish leather, and mangy fur trimmings, worn fringes, and beaded mantles, whence time and poverty had clawed handfuls of the bright beads. Each of them was,