Sir Tancred murmured politely, "Only too pleased."

"I must be in Paris either to-night or to-morrow morning for an hour's talk with Meyer before the Bourse opens. And I must leave England without anyone knowing I've left it. It may make a difference to me of—of a hundred thousand pounds."

"Pardon me," said Sir Tancred suavely. "I like my clients to be open with me. It will make a difference of ruin. The Cohens have you in a hole."

The millionaire gasped, "My goodness! how did you know? It means ruin—or—or I make a hundred thousand."

"I see," said Sir Tancred. "Well?"

"I left London quietly in a motor-car. Before I'd gone twenty miles, a racing Panhard, stuffed with private detectives—men I've sometimes employed myself"—he almost sobbed at the thought—"passed me; and another came up, and dropped back to a mile behind. They're here in Brighton. I'd given it up; I was going to dine here, sleep the night, and go back to London to fight it out—not that it's of any use unless I can see Meyer—when I saw you. I'll give—I'll give five thousand pounds to anyone who can get me across to Paris secretly. It's here—in my pocket." And he tapped his breast.

Sir Tancred thought earnestly for fully five minutes; then he said, "It can't be done."

"Don't say so! now don't," said the financier, "The money's here! Here!" and he again slapped his breast pocket.

"It's no use," said Sir Tancred. "I might smuggle you out of the hotel; but there isn't any sort of vessel, steamer, steam yacht, or launch to take you across."

"Let's go to Dover in my car!"

"What's the use? The detectives would follow in theirs."

The financier groaned, and some large tears ran down his face. He bent his head to hide them; and for all that he was not pleasant to look upon, Tinker felt sorry for him.

"Cheer up, man," said Sir Tancred. "You can always begin again!"

But the financier would not be heartened. He made a wretched dinner; after it he followed Sir Tancred into the billiard room, and steadily drinking brandies and sodas, watched him play pool. At eleven he went to bed. Tinker had gone to bed long before, but his door was just open, and he saw the financier go into his room. Five minutes later he stole across the corridor, and, without knocking, opened the door and went in. The financier was sitting at a table, gazing through a mist of tears at a nice, new nickel-plated revolver. He had no real intention of blowing his brains out, but with the childlike, emotional spirit of his race, he had persuaded himself that he had, and was luxuriating in his woe.

"What do you want?" he moaned.

"I've come to show you a way of getting to Paris," said Tinker, closing the door softly.

"Mein Gott!" cried the millionaire, relapsing into his vernacular in his excitement. "How? How?"

"By Herr Schlugst's flying-machine."

"A flying-machine! Is the boy mad?"

"No, I'm not. I've been with Herr Schlugst on three trial trips; and the last two he let me work it most of the time. It's as easy as winking, once you know how to do it, and he says I understand it as well as he does. It's all ready for the journey. We've only got to get into it without waking him; and he sleeps like a log."

"Mein Gott! Mein Gott! What a plan! I'm to fly in the air with a little boy! Oh, good gracious me! Good gracious me! What am I to do?" And he stamped up and down, wringing his hands.

"It's that or the revolver," said Tinker sweetly.

The financier clutched at his hair and raved: fear and avarice, conflicting, tore at his vitals. He owed his millions to no genuine force of character, but to luck, industry, and dishonesty. In this great crisis of his life he was helpless. Tinker, trained from babyhood by his wise father to study his fellow creatures, understood something of this, and began to goad him to the effort.

"It's a lot of money to lose," said he thoughtfully.

"The sweat of my brow! The sweat of my brow!" groaned the financier, who had really made it by the nimbleness of his tongue.

"And it seems a pity to blow your brains out, which hurts a good deal, before you've tried every chance," said Tinker.

The financier groaned.

"At any rate, if we did come a cropper, you'd be no worse off."

"Ah!" cried the financier, stopping short. "Why shouldn't I wake Herr Schlugst, and get him to take me?"

"Because he won't," said Tinker quietly. "He told me that nothing would induce him to try a flight in the night. He's all right in the daytime, but the darkness funks him. Foreigners are like that; they'll go to a certain point all right, but there they stop. That's what I've noticed. I notice these things, you know." He spoke indulgently.

It never occurred to the financier to doubt him; he was already a little under the influence of the cooler head. He walked up and down a little longer; and Tinker said no more. He had been taught to leave people to themselves when he saw them beginning to come to his way of thinking.

At last, with a horrible grimace which showed the depth of his agony, the financier cried, "I'll come! I'll come! I'll trust my life—oh, my precious life—to you. After all, you rescued the Kernaby child; and you had to fight to do it! I'll risk it! Oh, my money! My money!"

"Very good," said Tinker. "I'll come for you at half-past twelve. Put on your warmest great-coat. It'll be cold." And he slipped gently out of the room.

Five minutes later the distracted financier rang his bell, and ordered a bottle of 1820 liqueur brandy. It was the best thing he could have done: a private detective, who was sitting on guard in a room lower down the corridor to see that he did not go downstairs again, believed him to have thrown up the sponge, and to be drowning his sorrow, and allowed himself to become immersed in the current number of the Family Herald.

As was his practice, Sir Tancred, on his way to bed, looked in on Tinker, and found him sleeping the profound sleep of youth and innocence. But no sooner did he hear his father in bed and still, than he rose from that profound sleep of youth and innocence, dressed, even to his great-coat. He took a letter from his pocket, and put it prominently on the dressing-table. It ran:

DEAR FATHER:

I have taken Bloomenroot to Parris in Herr Shlugst flyingmacheen. Bring him to meet me at the Ifell Tower.

Your affectionate son TINKER.

Then, with his boots in his hand, he stole across to the financier's room. Thanks to the brandy, the financier looked very much wound up. Tinker bade him write on a sheet of notepaper, "Don't call me till eleven," pinned it on the outside of his bedroom door, locked it, and took the key. He left the sitting-room door unlocked. Then he opened the window, and, followed by his protege, who was already shivering with dread, he stepped out on to the balcony with the air of the leader of an army. The balcony ran round the hotel, as a way of escape during a fire; it was broad, and since the night was starry, but fairly dark, they were little likely to be seen from below by the detectives watching the hotel doors. They walked round to the back, came through a window into a bathroom, through the bathroom on to the servants' staircase, and went right down into the basement.

"I get up early in the morning before the servants, and I had to find a way out," said Tinker in an explanatory whisper.

He led the way through the kitchen into a long passage, set with the doors of cellars on either side. At the end of the passage was a short ladder with rounded iron rungs, by which barrels were lowered, and Tinker, mounting three rungs, pushed back a bolt, raised the heavy trap a little, and peered about from under it.

"The street's clear," he said. "Come on!"

He slipped out on to the pavement, helped the clumsy financier through the trap, caught his hand, and ran him across the street into a narrow lane.

"There!" he said cheerfully. "That's the most difficult part of the business! You're out of the hotel, and not a soul knows it!"

The financier's spirits brightened. Tinker had shown him his mettle, and he began to have confidence. Besides, he had drunk a good deal of the bottle of brandy. They hurried through the town by byways, and up on to the cliffs. As they neared the palisade, and saw the great bulk of the balloon looming through the starlight, the panting financier's spirits sank: his teeth chattered, and his knees knocked together.

"Oh, buck up! Buck up!" said Tinker impatiently. "You're all right! You're all right!"

It was a matter of a few seconds for him to climb the door of the palisades, drop lightly on the other side, and open it. He steered the financier gingerly round the planes, past the propelling and steering fans, and got him into the car. He set him well forward in the bows of it, and began to let the rope unwind from the windlass which moored the flying-machine. All the while he heard the steady snores of Herr Schlugst, sleeping in his iron hut.

The flying-machine rose slowly with very little creaking for all the greatness of the planes; the last of the rope ran out, and the lights of the town sank like stones in water beneath them.

"Right away!" cried Tinker joyfully, and the financier gasped.

When the lights of the town were a mere blur beneath them, Tinker switched on the electric lamps, and the millionaire saw him sitting on a wicker seat in the stern of the boat-shaped car, surrounded by levers, instruments, and dials. Tinker bade him grip the steel rails on either side of the car, and get ready for a swoop. Then he set the motor going, and steered round the flying-machine on to her course. She rose and rose, moving steadily forward at the same time, far above the sound of the waves of the Channel.

Now Herr Schlugst did not rely so much on his propeller for speed as on his skilful adaptation of the principle on which the bird swoops. When the aneroid told Tinker that the car had reached the height of 3000 feet, he opened a valve, and let the gas escape slowly from the balloon. The instant she began to sink he switched to a slight downward angle the great planes, some seventy feet long, which were fixed parallel to the car. The machine began to glide downwards on them, gathering momentum from the weight of the car, at a quickly increasing speed, until she was tearing through the air at the rate of forty miles an hour, and sinking a hundred feet in the mile. The financier sat hunched up, gasping and shivering as the air whizzed past his ears and shrilled among the ropes. Tinker, with an air of cheerful excitement, kept the machine on her course, and watched the aneroid: his face of a seraph was peculiarly appropriate to these high altitudes, though the millionaire was too busy with his fears to observe the fact.

In half an hour the machine had rushed down to five hundred feet above the sea: Tinker switched the planes to the same angle upwards: and the momentum drove her up the incline of the air with little diminished speed. Then he turned a tap and let the stored gas, compressed in an aluminum cylinder, flow into the balloon, and restored the whole machine to its former buoyancy. Moving more and more slowly the higher it rose, the flying-machine once more gained the height of 3000 feet, and once more swooped down from it. At the beginning of the upward sweep, Tinker said, "Another swoop like that will bring us to Paris."

The financier, who had spent the time qualifying for a place among the invertebrates, only groaned. Tinker was disgusted; but he said, "Cheer up! You're the first man who has ever crossed the Channel in a flying-machine. You'll be in the History books!"

The car rose and rose: Tinker had just resolved to swoop from 3500 feet this time, when of a sudden she rose out of the windless area into a stiff breeze, icily chill. They learnt what had happened by the balloon bumping down on their heads with apparent intent to smother them, and in a breath the car was spinning round, and jerking furiously to and fro. The millionaire screamed and bumped about the car, and bumped and screamed. Tinker set his teeth, jammed the flying-machine into the teeth of the wind, switched down the planes, and tried to drive her down. It was no use; she was whirled along like a piece of thistledown. Then he opened the valve and let her sink. In three minutes she had fallen below the wind, and was shooting swiftly on the downward swoop. The financier was staring at him with a frenzied eye. Tinker closed the valve, and said with a joyous brightness, "She was quite out of control for a good five minutes!"



The financier frankly gave it up; with a rending gasp he fell back in a dead faint.

Tinker shrugged his shoulders, regulated the pace of the machine by letting gas flow from the cylinder into the balloon till it was of the proper buoyancy, then roped the senseless financier to the bottom of the car, and came back to the helm.

The wind they had risen into had been blowing towards the east, so they had not lost ground during their tossing, but they had been driven south of their course, and he did not know exactly how to get back to it. On the dark earth beneath he could see towns as blurs of light on all sides of him, but no one of them was big enough to be Paris. He let the machine swoop on down to five hundred feet, and up again. On the upward course, from fifteen hundred feet he saw a great blur of light on the northern horizon: it was Paris, and he was swooping past it. He steered the machine round without taking the way off her, and swooped down towards the city. At the end of the swoop he was already over the suburbs, and he switched off the electric lamps. He took the way off the machine by switching up the planes; and then, using only the propeller, circled round, seeking for the Eiffel Tower. Presently he saw it looming through the first dim grey light of the dawn, steered over it, let fall a grapnel, and hooked it into the railings which ran round it; took a turn of the rope round the windlass, and wound the machine down to within twenty feet of the top. Then he went to the financier, unroped him, and kicked him in the ribs ungently.

As he kicked, saying, "Get up! Get up!" an astonished voice below cried, "Qui vive?"

Looking over the side of the car Tinker saw dimly the figure of a gendarme, and said briskly, "Santos-Dumont!"

"Vive Santos-Dumont!" cried the gendarme with enthusiasm.

Tinker went back to the financier, and kicked him again.

"Where am I? Where am I?" he murmured faintly.

"On the top of the Eiffel Tower," said Tinker.

"What? Saved! Saved!" cried the financier, for all the world as though he had been in a melodrama; and he sat up.

"I should like the five thousand pounds, please," said Tinker, brought back by the touch of earth from his aerial dreams to cold reality.

"Five thousand pounds!" cried the financier, every faculty alert at the mention of money. "No, no! How am I to get five thousand pounds? Five hundred now! Five hundred pounds is an enormous sum—an enormous sum for a little boy, or even fifty! Yes, yes; fifty!"

"That's really very tiresome," said Tinker very gently. "I never thought you'd be so foolish as to leave all that money in empty rooms in an hotel. Well, well, we must fly straight back and get it. I hope we shall have as good luck as we had coming over." And he turned to the levers.

"Here! here! here!" screamed the financier; tore a button off his coat in his haste to get at his breast pocket; whipped out his notecase, and with trembling fingers took five notes from the bundle which stuffed it, and thrust them into Tinker's hand.

Tinker counted them, made sure that each was for a thousand pounds, and put them in his pocket. Then he looked down at the gendarme, and said in French:

"I want to drop my assistant. Will you conduct him to the bottom of the tower?"

"Mais oui! Avec plaisir, Monsieur le Comte!" cried the gendarme, striking himself hard on the chest to show his eager enthusiasm.

"Merci bien," said Tinker, lowering the rope ladder.

The gendarme held it steady, and the financier descended gingerly. When he was off it, and the gendarme had loosed it, Tinker said "Au revoir! and mind you wire to my father at once, and let the grapnel rope slip out of the windlass." Lightened of the financier, the machine shot up into the air.

Tinker's task was done: he had only to restore the machine to Herr Schlugst; but he had a long while to wait. He realised suddenly that he was hungry and very, very sleepy. By letting some gas escape, he reduced the machine to a controllable buoyancy, and set about warming the coffee which the thoughtful Herr Schlugst had ready made. Then with brown bread, butter, and German sausage, he made an excellent breakfast. It was light by the time he had finished; and he set about looking for a sleeping-place, for he could not keep awake long. A wood on a hill some miles away seemed to him the spot he sought. He swooped gently for it, and was soon anchored to a tree-top and sleeping peacefully. It was past noon when a shouting awoke him. He looked down to find the wood full of people, four or five bold photographic spirits in the tree to which he was anchored, but nowhere near his grapnel, which was among the smaller branches. The roads leading to the wood were choked with bicycles, motor-cars, and pedestrians; and a station near was disgorging a crowd of people from an excursion train. It was time to be going.

He cut the grapnel rope, and started leisurely for Paris. He reached it in about an hour, and circled about it, observing it from above. Then he came to the Eiffel Tower, and practised steering round it, to the great joy of an excited and applauding crowd which thronged its top and stages. It was a great moment. He steered away over Paris, made a meal of the coffee, brown bread, and sausage left, and came back.

He was growing tired of waiting, and was meditating crossing over the top of the tower and pouring a little water from the ballast tank on the sympathetic crowd, when he saw his father and Herr Schlugst forcing their way through it. At once he rose above the tower and let down the grapnel. A dozen hands seized it, and drew down the machine. Tinker let the stored gas flow into the balloon to allow for Herr Schlugst's extra weight; and lowered the rope-ladder. The bursting Teuton came clambering up it, forcing down the car and planes by his weight on to the heads of the crowd, which was forced to hold them up with a thousand hands.

"Ach, you young tevil my machine to sdeal!" he cried, tumbling into the car.

"You shouldn't have refused to take me with you," said Tinker, preparing to slip over the other side on to anyone's head.

"What haf you broke? What haf you broke?" cried Herr Schlugst, looking round at the instruments with a practised eye, and seeing them unharmed.

"Nothing. What should I break anything for?" said Tinker scornfully.

"No; dere is nodings broke, schoundrel. But vere—vere is mine von tousand pound? I ask you! Vare is mine von tousand pound! You haf ruined me! Ruined me!"

"Oh, that's all right!" said Tinker. "I had a passenger who paid his fare. Here are two thousand pounds." And he gave him two of the notes.

Herr Schlugst opened his mouth and stared at the notes, "Doo tousand pound! Doo tousand pound!" he muttered thickly. "You vas von vonder-child! Von vonder-child!"

Tinker bade him good-bye, and slipped out of the car, leaving him to fly to some smooth place in the environs, where he could dismantle his machine. Sir Tancred was too thankful for Tinker's safety to be very angry with him: and they descended the tower surrounded by gendarmes, who were put to it to preserve Tinker from the embraces of excited persons of either sex. One fat Frenchman, indeed, kissed him on both cheeks, crying, "Vive le rosbif! vive le rosbif!" before he could ward him off.

At the bottom of the tower Mr. Blumenruth, radiant and triumphant, burst through the throng, flung himself upon them, and dragged them to a smart victoria which awaited them. He told them joyously that he had cleared eighty-seven thousand pounds, and protested that they should be his guests at his hotel as long as they stayed in Paris. On the way to it Sir Tancred got down to buy some cigars, and he was barely in the shop when the financier said in a jerky way to Tinker, "I saw a very neat little motor-car, which I should like to make you a present of. But I say—I don't want you to tell anyone—how—how ill I was up there. My spirit was all right, of course; but that rarefied air—acting on business worries—produced a state of nervous prostration. I—I wasn't quite myself, in fact."

Tinker looked at him with intelligent interest, and, closing one of his sunny blue eyes, said thoughtfully, "Nervous prostration? Is the motor a Panhard?"

"Yes," said Mr. Blumenruth.

"If you hadn't been so—so—upset, I've no doubt you'd have sailed the machine yourself," said Tinker warmly.



CHAPTER EIGHT

THE BARON AND THE MONEY-LENDER

Sir Tancred would only stay four days in Paris with the grateful Blumenruth, because he wished Hildebrand Anne to have the sea air, for it seemed to him that he had not yet got back his full strength after the scarlet fever. They returned, therefore, to Brighton, and when the weather grew hotter, removed to the more bracing East Coast. Tinker was for sharing the three thousand pounds he had made out of his trip in the flying-machine equally with his father; but Sir Tancred would not hear of it. Chiefly to please him, however, he borrowed a thousand of it at five per cent., and invested the rest in Tinker's name. With this thousand-pound note and three notes of fifty pounds, he paid off the loan of a thousand pounds which he had borrowed from Mr. Robert Lambert, a money-lender, five years before, with the balance of the interest up to date, and found himself once more unencumbered save for a few small debts, and with plenty of money for his immediate needs.

During August and September they stayed at different country houses; and Fortune being in a kindly mood, the money remained untouched. In the middle of October they came to London to their usual rooms in the Hotel Cecil; and Sir Tancred was one morning at breakfast disagreeably surprised to receive from Mr. Robert Lambert a demand for the immediate payment of 1450 pounds. At first he thought it was a mistake, then he remembered that he had paid Mr. Lambert in notes; and that Mr. Lambert had promised to get at once from his bank the promissory note on which the money had been borrowed, and send it to him. The promissory note had not come, and the matter had passed from Sir Tancred's mind. Now, he perceived that, if Mr. Lambert chose to deny that payment, he was in no little of a plight.

After breakfast, therefore, he took a hansom, and drove to Mr. Lambert's office. The worthy money-lender received him at once, and with no less delay began to deny with every appearance of honest indignation that he had been paid the debt. Sir Tancred grew exceedingly disagreeable; he set forth with perfect frankness his opinion of Mr. Lambert's character, declared that he would rather go to that uncomfortable abode of contemptuous debtors, Holloway, than be swindled in so barefaced a fashion; and exclaiming, "You may go to your native Jericho, before I pay you a farthing, you thieving rascal!" went out of the office, and banged the door behind him.

The worthy money-lender smiled an uncomfortable and malignant smile at the banged door, and at once gave instructions to his manager to take proceedings. Sir Tancred explained the transaction to Tinker; warned him against laxness in matters of business; prepared for immediate flight; and they caught the midnight mail from Euston. By the time an indefatigable bailiff had ascertained next day that they had left London, they were eating their dinner, in a secure peace, at Ardrochan Lodge in Ardrochan forest, which Sir Tancred had borrowed for the while from his friend Lord Crosland.

Hildebrand Anne was used to long periods unenlivened by companions of his own age; and he began forthwith to make the best of the forest. Some days he stalked the red deer with his father; some days were devoted to his education, fencing, boxing, and gymnastics; and on the others he explored the forest on a shaggy pony. It was of a comfortable size, forty square miles or thereabouts, stretches of wild heath, broken by strips of wood, craggy hills, and swamps, full of streams, and abounding in many kinds of animals. It was an admirable place for Indians, outlaws, brigands, and robber barons, and Tinker practised all these professions in turn, with the liveliest satisfaction.

At first it was something of a tax on his imagination to be a whole band of these engaging persons himself; with one companion it would have been easy enough, but his imagination presently compassed the task. And when he found his way to the Deil's Den, a low stone tower on a hill some six miles from Ardrochan, his favourite occupation was that of robber baron. It would have been more proper to put the tower to its old use of a lair of a Highland cateran; but, to his shame, Tinker funked the dialect with which such a person must necessarily be cursed.

The Deil's Den had earned its name in earlier centuries from the bloody deeds of its first owners. No gillie would go within a mile of it, even in bright sunshine. Tinker's carelessness of its ghosts, a headless woman and a redheaded man with his throat cut, had won him the deepest respect of the village, or rather hamlet, of Ardrochan. Twice he had constrained himself to wait in the tower till dusk, in the hope that his fearful, but inquiring, spirit would be gratified by the sight of one or other of these psychic curiosities.

It was a two-storied building, and its stone seemed likely to last as long as the hills from which it had been quarried. In some thought that it might be used as a watch-tower by his keepers, Lord Crosland had repaired its inside, and fitted it with a stout door and two ladders, one running to the second story and another to the roof. From here the keen eyes of Hildebrand Anne, Baron of Ardrochan, scanned often the countryside, looking for travelling merchants or wandering knights; while his gallant steed Black Rudolph, whose coat was drab and dingy, waited saddled and bridled below, and Blazer the bloodhound sniffed about the burn hard by. Blazer had a weakness for rats quite uncommon in bloodhounds.

Tinker cherished but a faint hope that Fortune would ever send him a prisoner, even a braw, shock-headed lad, or sonsie, savage lassie of the country. But he did not do justice to that goddess's love of mischief. It was she who inspired into Mr. Robert Lambert the desire to shine in the Great World; and it was she who gave him the idea of taking for the season Lord Hardacre's house and forest of Tullispaith, in lieu of the cash which he would never get. Thither he invited certain spirited young clients, who had practically only the choice of being Mr. Lambert's guests at Tullispaith or King Edward's at Holloway. Thither he came, a week beforehand, to make ready for them.

At once he set about becoming an accomplished deer-stalker. For three days he rode, or tramped, about the forest of Tullispaith, in search of red deer which, in quite foolish estimate of their peril, insisted always on putting a hill between themselves and his rifle. On the fourth day he rested, for though his spirit was willing, his legs were weak. This inactivity irked him, for he knew the tireless energy of the English sportsman; and at noon Fortune inspired him with the most disastrous idea of all, the idea of taking a stroll by himself. He took his rifle and a packet of sandwiches, and set out. Now to the unpractised eye any one brae, or glen, or burn of bonnie Scotland is exactly like any other brae, or glen, or burn of that picturesque land. He had not gone two miles before he had lost his way.

He did not mind, for he was sure that he knew his direction. He was wrong; he may have been like his Oriental ancestors in some of his qualities, but he lacked their ingrained sense of orientation; and he was walking steadily away from the house of Tullispaith. He rested often and he looked often at his watch. He passed over the border of Tullispaith into the forest of Ardrochan, and wandered wearily on and on. The autumn sun was moving down the western sky at a disquieting speed, when at last he caught sight of the Dell's Den, and with a new energy hurried towards it.

At about the same time Hildebrand Anne, the robber baron of Ardrochan, caught sight of him, mounted Black Rudolph, and rode down to meet him, ready to drag or lure him to his stronghold. The angel face of Tinker had never looked more angelic to human being than it looked to the weary money-lender. He had never seen him before; therefore, he had no reason to suppose that that face was not the index to an angelic nature. Unfortunately, Tinker knew by sight most of his father's friends and enemies, and at the first glance he recognised the squat figure, the thick, square nose, and muddy complexion of Mr. Robert Lambert.

"My lad," said the money-lender, failing to perceive that he was addressing one of the worst kind of man in all romance, "I've lost my way. I want to get to the house of Tullispaith. Which is the road?"

"There is no road; and it's eight miles away," said Tinker, knitting his brow into the gloomy and forbidding frown of a robber baron.

"Eight miles! What am I to do? Where is the nearest place I can get a conveyance?"

"It would be a twenty-mile drive if you got a cart, and there's no cart nearer than Ardrochan, and that's six miles away."

"Well, then, a horse, or a pony, and a guide?"

"You could get a pony at Hamish Beg's; and one of his sons could guide you."

"Where does he live? How can I get there?"

"Three miles the other side of that tower."

"Will you show me the way? I'll give you—I'll give you half-a-crown."

"Hildebrand Anne of Ardrochan is not the hired varlet of every wandering chapster," said Tinker with a splendid air.

"I'm not a wandering chapster," said the money-lender. "I'm a gentleman of London. I'll give you five shillings—half a sovereign—a pound!"

"The offer of money to one in whose veins flows the proudest blood of the North is an insult!" said Tinker in a terrible voice.

"No offence! No offence!" said Mr. Lambert, cursing what he believed to be the penniless Highland pride under his breath.

Suddenly Tinker saw his way. "From the top of yon tower I can show you the path to Hamish Beg's. Follow me," he said, turned his pony, and led the way up the hill with a sinister air.

With a groan, the money-lender, quite unobservant of the sinister air, breasted the ascent. He set down his rifle by the door of the tower, and followed Tinker up the ladders.

"You see those two pine trees between those two far hills?" said Tinker.

Mr. Lambert drew round his field-glasses, and after long fumbling, focussed them on the pines. "Well?" he said.

There was no answer; he turned to his angel guide, and found himself alone on the tower. He ran to the top of the ladder and looked down. At the bottom stood Tinker regarding him with an excellent sardonic smile: "Ha! ha!" he cried in a gruff, triumphant voice, "Trapped—trapped!" And he turned on his heel.

The money-lender heard the door slam and the key turn in the lock. He ran to the parapet, and saw Tinker mounting his pony with an easy grace and the air of one who has performed a meritorious action.

"Hi! Hullo! What are you up to?" cried Mr. Lambert.

"Foul extortioner! Your crimes have found you out! You have consigned many a poor soul to the dungeon, it is your turn now," said Tinker with admirable grandiloquence. Then, dropping to his ordinary voice, he added plaintively: "Of course it's not really a dungeon; it ought to be underground—with rats. But we must make the best of it."

"Look here, my lad," said Mr. Lambert thickly. "I don't want any of your silly games! I shall be late enough home as it is. You unlock that door, and show me the way to this Beg's at once! D'ye hear?"

Tinker laughed a good scornful laugh. "Lambert of London," he said, returning to the romantic vein, "to-night reflect on your misdeeds. To-morrow we will treat of your ransom. Hans Breithelm and Jorgan Schwartz, ye answer for this caitiff's safe keeping with your heads! I charge ye watch him well. To horse, my brave men. We ride to Ardrochan!" And he turned his pony.



The money-lender broke into threats and abuse; then, as the pony drew further away, he passed to entreaties. Tinker never turned his head; he rode on, brimming with joyous triumph; he had a real prisoner.

Mr. Lambert shouted after him till he was hoarse, he shouted after him till his voice was a wheezy croak. Tinker passed out of sight without a glance back, and, for a while, that iron-hearted, inexorable man of many loans, sobbed like a child with mingled rage and fear. Then he scrambled down the ladder, and tried the door. There was no chance of his bursting it open; that was a feat far beyond his strength; and though he might have worked the rusted bars out of the window, he could never have forced his rotundity through it. Then he bethought himself of passers-by, and hurried to the top of the tower. There was no one in sight. He shouted and shouted till he lost his voice again; the echoes died away among the empty hills. He leaned upon the parapet waiting, with the faintest hope that the diabolical boy would tire of his joke, return, and set him free. Again and again he asked himself who was this boy who had recognised him in this Scotch desert.

The dusk gathered till he could not see a hundred yards from the tower. Then he came down, struck a match, and examined the bottom room; it was being borne in upon him that he was destined to spend the night in it. It was some twelve feet square, and the stone floor was clean. In one corner was a pile of heather; but there was no way of stopping up the window, and the night was setting in chill.

He went back to the top of the tower; it was dark now. He shouted again. The conviction of the hopelessness of his plight was taking a strong hold upon him, and he was growing hungry. He stamped wearily round the top of the tower to warm his chilling body, pondering a hundred futile plans of escape, breaking off to consign to perdition the deceptive angel child, and meditating many different revenges. At the end of an hour he went down the ladder, and flung himself on the pile of heather in a paroxysm of despair.

Till nearly ten o'clock he went now and again to the top of the tower, and shouted. He was beginning to grow very hungry. At ten o'clock he buried himself in the heather, and slept for an hour. He awoke cold and stiff, and his sensitive stomach, used to the tenderest indulgence, was clamouring angrily. He was learning what the cold and hunger, which, by a skilful manipulation of the laws of his adopted country, he had been able to mete out to many foolish innocents with no grudging hand, really were. He went to the top of the tower, and shouted fruitlessly; he warmed himself by stamping up and down; then he came and slept again. This was his round all the night through: snatches of uneasy sleep, cold and hungry awakenings, shoutings, and stampings round the top of the tower.

Meanwhile Tinker had ridden joyously home, and shown himself in such cheerful spirits during dinner that Sir Tancred had observed him with no little suspicion, wondering if it could really be that he had found opportunities of mischief even in a deer-forest. After dinner Tinker went into the kitchen, where he found Hamish Beg supping. He talked to him for a while, on matters of sport; then he said, "I say, you told me about the headless woman and the red-headed man with his throat cut, at the Deil's Den, but you never told me about the man in brown who shouts and waves from the top of the tower, and when you come to it, it's empty."

Hamish, the cook, and the two maids burst into a torrent of exclamations in their strange language. "Yes," said Tinker, "a man in brown who shouts and waves from the top of the tower, and when you come to it, no one's there."

He kept his story to this, and presently came back to his father, assured that the more loudly Mr. Lambert yelled, and the more wildly he waved, the further would any inhabitant of Ardrochan fly from the Deil's Den. He went to bed in a gloating joy, which kept him awake a while; and it was during those wakeful moments that a memory of "Monte Cristo" suggested that he should gain a practical advantage from what had so far been merely an act of abstract justice.

It was past eleven when Tinker came riding over the hills at the head of his merry, but imaginary men. Horribly hungry, but warmed by the sun to a quite passable malignity, the money-lender watched his coming from the top of the tower, pondering how to catch him and thrash him within an inch of his life. He did not know that far more active men than he had cherished vainly that arrogant ambition, but Tinker's cheerful and confident air afforded little encouragement to his purpose.

"Halt!" cried the robber baron, reining up his pony. "Hans and Jorgan, is your captive safe? Good. Bring him forth." He turned to his invisible band. "To your quarters, varlets! I would confer alone with the usurious"—he rolled the satisfying word finely off his tongue—"rogue."

Hand on hip he sat, and watched his merry figments dismount and lead away their horses.

He turned, and frowned splendidly on the prisoner. "What think ye of our hospitality, Lambert of London?" he said.

Mr. Lambert scowled; his emotion was too deep for words.

Suddenly Tinker dropped the robber baron, and became his frank and engaging self: "I'm sorry to be so late," he said with a charming air of apology, "but I had to send a message to Tullispaith to say that you would not be back till Saturday, or perhaps Monday."

"What!" screamed Mr. Lambert. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't want them to hunt for you. I'm going to keep you here till you do what I want," said Tinker with a seraphic smile.

"You young rascal! You mean to try and keep me here!" screamed Mr. Lambert, jumping about in a light, but ungainly fashion. "Oh, I'll teach you! I'll make you repent this till your dying day! You think you can keep me here! You shall see. The first shepherd, the first keeper who passes will let me out. And I won't rest"—and he swore an oath quite unfit for boyish ears—"till I've hunted you down!"

"No one will come within a mile of the Deil's Den," said the unruffled Tinker. "It's haunted by a headless woman and a redheaded man with his throat cut. But perhaps you've seen them. Besides, I've told them that there's a man in brown who shouts and waves, and then disappears when anyone comes to the tower. Why, if they see you, they'll run for their lives." He spoke with a convicting quietness.

Mr. Lambert doubled up over the parapet in a gasping anguish.

"You're not going to leave here till you give me a letter for your clerk, telling him to hand over Sir Tancred Beauleigh's promissory note," said Tinker.

Mr. Lambert rejected the suggestion in extravagant language.

"You bandy words with me!" cried the Baron Hildebrand Anne of Ardrochan. "Lambert of London, beware! Think, rash rogue, on your grinders! Hans and Jorgan, prepare the red-hot pincers! You have a quarter of an hour to reflect, Lambert."

He flung himself off his pony, tethered it, strode down to the spring which trickled out of the hillside some forty yards away, and came back bearing a big jug full of water.

Mr. Lambert watched him in a bursting fury, at whiles scanning the empty hills with a raging eye. Suddenly light dawned on him: "Are you the boy who stole the flying-machine?" he cried.

"You mind your own business!" said Tinker tartly; it was his cherished belief that he had borrowed the flying-machine.

Mr. Lambert understood at last with whom he had to deal; and the knowledge was not cheering. His angry stomach clamoured at him to come to terms, but his greed was still too strong for it.

"The time is up, Lambert of London!" said Tinker presently, very sternly. "Will you ransom your base carcase?"

The money-lender turned his back on him with a lofty dignity.

"Ha! ha! Hunger shall tame that proud spirit!" said the Baron of Ardrochan.

Suddenly the money-lender heard the door opened, and he dashed for the ladder. He scrambled down it in time to hear the key turn again, but the jug of water stood inside. He took it up and drank a deep draught. He had not known that he was so thirsty, never dreamed that water could be so appetising. He heard Tinker summon his men, and when he came back to the top of the tower, he was riding away. He watched him go with a sinking heart, and, since he was so empty, it had a good depth to sink to. Twice he opened his mouth to call him back, but greed prevailed.

The day wore wearily through. His spoilt stomach was now raving at him in a savage frenzy. Now and again he shouted, but less often as the afternoon drew on, for he knew surely that it was hopeless.

As the dusk fell, he found himself remembering Tinker's words about the headless woman and the redheaded man, and began to curse his folly in not having come to terms. At times his hunger was a veritable anguish. This night was a thousand times worse than the night before. His hunger gave him little rest, and he awoke from his brief sleep in fits of abject terror, fancying that the redheaded man was staring in through the window; he saw his gashed throat quite plainly. He grew colder and colder, for he was too faint with hunger to stamp about the top of the tower. Later he must have grown delirious, for he saw the headless woman climbing up the ladder to the second story. It must have been delirium, for the figure he saw wore an ordinary nightrail, whereas the lady of the legend wore a russet gown. Some years later, as it seemed to him, the dawn came. It grew warmer; and he huddled into the pile of heather and slept.

He was awakened by a shout of "Lambert of London, awake!" and tottering to the window, groaning, he beheld a cold grouse, a three-pound chunk of venison, two loaves, and a small bottle of whiskey neatly set out on a napkin. His mouth opened and shut, and opened and shut.

"The letter, rogue! Are you going to give me the letter?" shouted the Baron Hildebrand Anne fiercely.

Mr. Lambert tore himself from the window, and flung himself down on the heather, sobbing. "Fourteen hundred and fifty pounds!" he moaned, "Fourteen hundred and fifty pounds!—and costs!" Suddenly his wits cleared . . . What a fool he'd been! . . . Why shouldn't he give the boy the letter, and wire countermanding his instructions? . . . Oh, he had been a fool!

He hurried to the window, and cried, "Yes, yes, I'll give it you! Give me the paper. I've got a fountain pen!"

"You'd better have a drink of whiskey first; your hand will be too shaky to write your usual handwriting," said the thoughtful Tinker, handing him the bottle along with the note-paper.

Mr. Lambert took a drink, and indeed it steadied his hand. Sure that he could make it useless, he wrote a careful and complete letter, lying at full length on the floor, his only possible writing table.

He scrambled up, and thrust it through the window, crying, "Here you are! Let me out!"

Tinker spelled the letter carefully through, and put it into another letter he had already prepared to send to Sir Tancred's solicitors. Then he handed the money-lender a thick venison sandwich, cut while he had been writing.

The tears ran down Mr. Lambert's face as his furious jaws bit into it.

"Don't wolf it!" said Tinker sternly. "Starving men should feed slowly."

Mr. Lambert had no restraint; he did wolf it. Then he asked for more.

"In a quarter of an hour," said Tinker, and he gave him nothing sooner for all his clamorous entreaties.

After a second sandwich the money-lender was another man, and Tinker, seeing that he was not ill, said, "I must be going; I have a long ride to post this letter"; and he began to hand in the rest of the food through the window.

"Be careful not to eat it all up at once," he said. "It's got to last you till to-morrow."

"What's this! What's this!" cried Mr. Lambert. "You promised to release me when you got the letter!"

"When I get the promissory note, or when my father's solicitor gets it. I've told him to wire."

The money-lender snarled like a dog; his brilliant idea had proved of no good. He stormed and stormed; Tinker was cheerful, but indifferent. He thrust a rug he had brought with him through the window, summoned his phantom band, and rode away.

Mr. Lambert spent a gloomy, but, thanks to the soothing of his stomach, a not uncomfortable day. He was very sad that he had lost the chance of swindling Sir Tancred Beauleigh out of 1450 pounds; and his sadness and an occasional twinge of rheumatism filled him with thoughts of revenge. Slowly he formed a plan of disabling Tinker by an unexpected kick when he opened the door, thrashing him within an inch of his life, riding off on his pony, and leaving him helpless, to starve or not, according as he might be found. This plan was a real comfort to him. He passed an unhaunted night; and next morning Tinker brought him more food. For some hours he played at robber baron, and now and again held conversations about the money-lender with his band. None of them contained compliments. Mr. Lambert watched him with a sulky malignity, and matured his plan.

The next morning he awoke late, but very cheerful at the prospect of freedom and revenge. He came to the window rubbing his hands joyfully, and saw a little parcel hanging from the bars. He opened it, and found the key of the door, a little compass, and a letter. Swearing at his vanished chance of revenge, he opened it; it ran:

Fly at once. Steer N. E. for Tulyspathe. Hamish believes you are uncanny, and has molded a silver bullet out of a half crown to lay your resless spirrit with. His rifel is oldfashuned, but he will not miss and waist the half crown he is so thriffty.

A SEKRET WORNER.

Mr. Lambert steered N.E. at once; he went not like the wind, but as much like the wind as his soft, short legs would carry him. He scanned every bush and gully with fearful eyes; he gave every thicket a wide berth, and every time he saw Hamish, and he saw him behind a thousand bushes and boulders, he shouted: "I'm Mr. Lambert from London, I'm not a spirit!"

It was, indeed, a wasted and dirty money-lender who reached Tullispaith late in the day. He had but one thought in his mind, to fly immediately after dinner from this expansive and terrifying country. He wired to his guests not to come; he discharged his servants; and as he crossed the border next day, he bade farewell to the stern and wild Caledonia in a most impressive malediction.

When Sir Tancred Beauleigh received his lawyer's letter containing the promissory note, he was not a little bewildered; Tinker was quick to enlighten him; and he heard that angel child's explanation of his application of mediaeval German methods to a modern monetary difficulty with a grateful astonishment.



CHAPTER NINE

TINKER INTERVENES

Sir Tancred lingered on at Ardrochan Lodge, for he saw that in that strong air Tinker was losing the last of the delicacy which had been the effect of his attack of scarlet fever. And when Lord Crosland and two other men joined him there, he was very well contented. The others shared his content; Tinker, more and more the Baron Hildebrand of Ardrochan, was quite happy, and there they stayed till the Scotch winter came down on them in all its fell severity.

Then they moved southwards to Melton Mowbray, and hunted till the frost put an end to that sport. On the third night of the frost, as they were cutting for partners for a fresh rubber of bridge, Lord Crosland said: "I tell you what, Beauleigh, the sooner we get out of this weather the better. Let's be off to Monte Carlo, make up a pool, and try that system of yours."

"It's a very good idea," said Sir Tancred. "The only question is whether the English winter isn't good for Tinker. It's hardening, you know."

"Always Tinker," said Lord Crosland with a smile. "I tell you what, Nature ought to have made you a woman: what a splendid mother you'd have made!"

"I think she'd have found she'd made a pretty bad mistake," said Sir Tancred.

"Besides," said Lord Crosland, "the Admirable is as hard as a tenpenny nail as it is. I've never seen the little beggar tired yet; and I've seen him at the end of some hardish days."

"Well, we'll see," said Sir Tancred. "We're partners." And the game went on.

Next morning he asked Tinker if he would like to go to the south of France, or stay and be hardened. Tinker thought a while, made up his mind that his father would like to go to the South of France, and said, "I think I'm hard enough, sir,—to go on with. Besides,

"When the wind is in the East It's neither fit for man nor beast.

In fact it shrivels me up. I should like some sunshine."

"Then we will go," said Sir Tancred.

Accordingly, the middle of the next week found them lodged at the Hotel des Princes, Monte Carlo, enjoying the nourishing sunshine of the Riviera. At least Tinker was enjoying it; the demands of a system required his father and Lord Crosland to spend most of their day in the darker, though hardly cooler air of the Temple of Fortune. But the system went well, and they did not repine.

The first time he dined in the restaurant of the hotel, Sir Tancred was disagreeably surprised to see sitting at a neighbouring table his loathed uncle, Sir Everard Wigram. They had met now and again during the past nine years; but as such a meeting had always resulted in some severe wound to the Baronet's dignity, he shunned his nephew like the pest, and abused him from a distance. At the same table sat a charming, peach-complexioned English girl. After a careful scrutiny of her, Sir Tancred decided that she must be his cousin Claire, Sir Everard's eldest child, and admitted with a very grudging reluctance that even the rule that thorns do not produce grapes is proved by exceptions. The third person at their table was a handsome young man, with glossy black hair, a high-coloured, florid face, and a roving black eye. Sir Tancred's gaze rested on him with a malicious satisfaction; he knew all about Mr. Arthur Courtnay.

Presently Lord Crosland's eye fell on that table. "Hullo!" he said sharply. "How on earth comes that bounder Courtnay to be dining with the Wigrams?"

"Like to like," said Sir Tancred with a surprising, cheerful animation.

A few mornings later Sir Tancred, Tinker, and Lord Crosland were sitting in the gardens of the Temple of Fortune, and on a bench hard by sat Claire and Courtnay. He was bending over her, talking volubly, in a loverlike attitude, exceedingly offensive in so public a place. To Sir Tancred's shrewd eyes he seemed to be deliberately advertising their intimacy. She was gazing dreamily before her with happy eyes, over the sea. Lord Crosland grew more and more fidgety; and at last he said hotly, "You ought to interfere!"

"Not I!" said Sir Tancred. "I'm not going to interfere. I have enough to do to keep Tinker out of mischief without acting as dry-nurse to the children of Uncle Bumpkin."

"But hang it all, the man's a regular bad hat!" said Lord Crosland. "He was advised to resign from the Bridge Club, and I happen to know that he is actually wanted in London about a cheque."

"And in Paris, Berlin, Petersburg, Vienna, and Buda-Pesth. Men who speak French as well as he does always are," said Sir Tancred. "Which reminds me, Tinker, your accent is getting too good. The honest English tongue was never made to speak French like a Frenchman. Let up on it a little."

"Yes, sir," said Hildebrand Anne.

"But you ought to do something, don't you know?" said Lord Crosland. "The child's very pretty, and nice, and sweet, and all that. It would be no end of a shame if she came to grief with that bounder Courtnay."

"I won't stir a finger," said Sir Tancred firmly, "for two reasons. One, Bumpkin Wigram helped my stepmother spoil my early life; two, if this bounder Courtnay has got round Bumpkin words would be wasted. Bumpkin is as dense and as obstinate as any clodhopper who ever chawed bacon."

"But she's a pretty child and worth saving," said Lord Crosland. "What do you think, Tinker?"

"I should think she was rather inexperienced," said Hildebrand Anne, with admirable judgment.

"Solomon, va!" said Lord Crosland, clutching the boy's ribs, and drawing from him a sudden yell.

"Well, come along; we have a hard day's work before us," said Sir Tancred; and the two of them rose and strolled off towards the Temple of Fortune.

They left Tinker sitting still and thoughtful, the prey of a case of conscience. He knew the story of his father's marriage, his separation from his wife by the action of Lady Beauleigh and Sir Everard. He had been trained to detest them, and to believe any revenge on them a mere act of justice. But his dead mother was but a shadowy figure to him, and this girl was very charming, and sweet, and kind, for he had had a long talk with her one evening, and she had shared a box of chocolates with him. Did those chocolates constitute the tie of bread and salt between them which his father had taught him was so binding? He wished to help the girl, therefore he made up his mind that they did. With a sigh of satisfaction he rose, sauntered up to the absorbed lovers, and began to parade up and down before them. His nearness put something of a check on the eloquence of Mr. Arthur Courtnay, and every time Tinker's shadow fell on them he looked up and frowned.

At last he said, "Go away, my lad, and play somewhere else."

"I don't want any cheek from a hairdresser's assistant," said Tinker with blithe readiness.

There is nothing so wounding as the truth, and Courtnay knew that he was weak about the hair; he never could bring himself to keep it properly cropped; it was so glossy. His florid face became quickly florider, and he cried, "You impudent young dog!"

"Do not speak to me until you've been introduced. You're always forcing your acquaintance upon someone, Roland Macassar," said Tinker.

It was again the wounding truth; and Courtnay sprang up and dashed for him. Tinker bolted round a group of shrubs, Courtnay after him. Finding him unpleasantly quick on his feet Tinker bolted into the shrubs. Courtnay plunged after him right into a well-grown specimen of the flowering cactus. It brought him up short. He began to swear, and though he could have sworn with equal fluency and infelicity in French, German, or Italian, in the depth of his genuine emotion he returned to the tongue of his boyhood, and swore in English. When he came out of the shrubs, adorned on one side of his face and both hands with neat little beads of blood, he found that Claire had risen from her seat, and was looking shocked, surprised, and worst of all, disgusted. He did not mend matters much by mixing his apologies with threats of vengeance on Tinker; but his temper, once out of control, was not easily curbed. He made a most unfortunate impression on her; the beads of blood scarcely excited her pity at all.

Meanwhile Tinker had taken advantage of his pursuer's meeting with the cactus to leave the terrace swiftly. He went back to the Hotel des Princes, and took out Blazer for a walk, and as he walked, his seraph-like face glowed with the pleasantest complacency. Blazer did not like Monte Carlo at all; for him there was no sport and little exercise in it; Tinker liked it very much. He had made many friends in it, and enjoyed many amusements, the chief a pleasant, perpetual war against the heavy, liveried guardians of the gambling rooms. It was his opinion that people came to Monte Carlo to gamble; it was the opinion of the Societe des Bains de Mer de Monte Carlo that children ought not to be admitted to the tables. They asserted their opinion; and Tinker asserted his, with the result that his bolt into the Salles de Jeu and his difficult extrication from them by the brawny, but liveried officials was fast becoming one of the events of the day. Sometimes Tinker would make his bolt from the outermost portal; sometimes, with the decorous air of one going to church, he would join the throng filing into the concert room, and bolt from the midst of it. The process of expulsion was always conducted with the greatest courtesy on either side; for his bolt had become an agreeable variety in the monotonous lives of the guardians; they never knew when or in what fashion it would come next.

Now he had another occupation, the shadowing of Mr. Arthur Courtnay. That florid Adonis never grew used to hearing a gentle voice singing softly:

"Get your hair cut! Get your hair cut!"

or,

"Oh, Tatcho! Oh, Tatcho! Rejoice, ye bald and weary men! You'll soon be regular hairy men! Sing! Rejoice! Let your voices go! Sprinkle some on your cranium! What, ho! Tatcho!"

The poetry was vulgar; but long ago his insight into the heart of man had taught Tinker to attack the vulgar with the only weapon effective against them, vulgarity.

Sooner or later, whether he was walking, or sitting with Claire, those vulgar strains would be wafted to Mr. Arthur Courtnay's ears, and they injured his cause. They kept alive in the girl's mind an uneasy doubt whether her father was right in asserting Arthur Courtnay to be one of the nicest fellows he had ever met, a veritable gentleman of the old school, an opinion founded on the fact that Courtnay was the only man who had ever given two hours' close attention to his views on Protection.

But, for all this lurking doubt, Courtnay's influence over her was growing stronger and stronger. He was forever appealing to her pity by telling her of the hard and lonely life he had lived since his father, a poor gentleman of good family, had died in exile at Boulogne. Really, his father, a stout but impecunious horse-dealer of the name of Budgett, certainly in exile at Boulogne owing to a standing difference with the bankruptcy laws of his country, was alive still. But Arthur was very fond of himself, and once in the mood of self-pity, he could invent pathetic anecdote after pathetic anecdote of his privations which would have touched the heart of a hardened grandmother, much more of a susceptible girl. She fell into the way of calling him "King Arthur" to herself.

He devoted himself to winning her with an unrelaxing energy, for she had forty thousand pounds of her own.

But he cared very little for her, and sometimes he found his love-making hard work. She was not the type of girl whom he admired; her delicacy irritated him; he preferred what the poet has called "an armful of girl," buxom and hearty. Often, therefore, when she had gone to bed, he would refresh himself by a vigorous flirtation with Madame Seraphine de Belle-Ile, a brisk and vivacious young widow, who affected always gowns of a peculiarly vivid and searching scarlet. And this self-indulgence proved in the end the ruin of his fine scheme of establishing himself in life on a sound monetary basis.

Tinker was about to get into bed one evening, and found himself slow about it. His conscience was worrying him about some duty left undone, and he could not remember what the duty was. Of a sudden his terrible omission flashed into his mind: in his patient application to the task of shadowing and annoying Mr. Arthur Courtnay he had forgotten his daily bolt into the gambling rooms. Reluctant, but firm, he slipped on his pumps and went downstairs. Four minutes later the feverish gamblers in the Salles de Jeu were gratified by the sight of a seraph-like child in blue silk pyjamas who flew gaily round the tables pursued by two stout and joyfully excited Southern Europeans in livery. The pursuit was lively, but short, for Tinker ran into the arms of a wily croupier who had slipped from his seat, and unexpectedly joined the chase. He was handed over to his pursuers and conducted from the rooms, amidst the plaudits of the gamblers. He bade good-night to his liveried friends on the threshold of the Casino, congratulating them on their increasing efficiency in "Le Sport," and warm, but happy with the sense of one more duty done, he strolled into the gardens to cool.



He was noiseless in his pumps, and coming quietly round a clump of shrubs, he caught Mr. Arthur Courtnay in the act of trying to kiss Madame de Belle-Ile with a fervour only justified by the most romantic attachment.

"Oh!" said Tinker reproachfully; and even more reproachfully he began to sing:

"Coupez vos cheveux! Coupez vos cheveux!"

With an execration which was by no means muttered, Mr. Arthur Courtnay sprang up. Tinker darted away, and Courtnay followed. They pelted through the gardens, Courtnay gaining; but as he passed a couple of gendarmes standing in front of the Casino, Tinker yelled: "Gare le voyou! Gare le voyou!" Instinctively the gendarmes flung themselves before Courtnay, and his impetus brought the three of them to the ground with some violence.

With one fleeting glance behind, Tinker scudded on to the hotel, and once safely in his room abandoned himself without restraint to convulsions of inextinguishable delight. When he recovered his habitual calm, he saw that Fortune had given him a weapon with which he might save his cousin.

Mr. Arthur Courtnay and the gendarmes picked themselves up; he made his explanations, and wisely compensated them for the bruises they had received in his fall. Then giving no more thought to Madame de Belle-Ile, who sat awaiting him eagerly, he returned gloomily to his hotel, reflecting on the carelessness which had delivered him into the hands of an indefatigable imp of mischief. The upshot of his reflection was a resolve to press his wooing to an immediate conclusion. The next day and the day after, therefore, he redoubled his lamentations that the smallness of his means prevented him from going, as his natural honesty dictated, straight to Claire's father, and asking for her hand, and protested that he dare not risk the loss of her, which would work irreparable havoc in his life. It was only another step to suggest that, once they were married, her father's strong liking for him would soon bring about their forgiveness. He pressed and pressed these points, pausing at times to declare the vastness of his affection for her, until at last, against her better judgment, and in spite of a lurking distrust of him, of which she could not rid herself, she yielded to his persistence and the overwhelming influence of his stronger personality, and consented to elope with him.

Two days later, as Tinker, Sir Tancred, and Lord Crosland were at dejeuner, Claire and Courtnay passed them on their way to the gardens.

"I shouldn't wonder if those two ran away together," said Lord Crosland; and his cheerful face fell gloomy.

"They have the air," said Sir Tancred coolly.

"Look here, you ought to interfere, don't you know? You ought, really," said Lord Crosland, who had fallen under the fascination of Claire's fresh charm.

"Why don't you?" said Sir Tancred.

"Well," said Lord Crosland uncomfortably, "I did go to Sir Everard, and tell him to keep an eye on Courtnay; and he as good as told me to go to—Jericho."

"Just like Bumpkin," said Sir Tancred contemptuously. "I'll bet you a fiver they bolt to-night—by the train des decaves."

"I don't want to bet about it," said Lord Crosland very gloomily.

Their talk made Tinker thoughtful. It would have been easy enough to settle the matter by revealing Courtnay's injudicious display of affection towards Madame de Belle-Ile, but that was not Tinker's way. He had a passion for keeping things in his own hands, and a pretty eye for dramatic possibilities. Besides, he had taken a great dislike to Courtnay, and was eager to make his discomfiture signal.

At half-past four in the afternoon he knocked at the door of Madame de Belle-Ile's suite of rooms, and her maid conducted so prominent a figure in Monte Carlo society straight to her mistress.

Madame de Belle-Ile, having just changed from a bright scarlet costume into a brighter, was taking her afternoon tea before returning to the tables.

"Bonjour, Monsieur le Vaurien," she said with a bright smile. "Have you at last succeeded in gambling?"

"No; it would be no pleasure to me to gamble unless your bright eyes were shining on the table," said Tinker with a happy recollection of a compliment he had overheard.

"Farceur! Va!" said the lady with a pleased smile.

"I came to ask if you would like to sup with Mr. Courtnay to-night?" said the unscrupulous Tinker.

"Ah, le bel Artur!" cried the lady. "But with pleasure. Where?"

"Oh, in the restaurant of the hotel," said Tinker.

The lady's face fell a little; she would have preferred to sup in a less public place, one more suited to protestations of devotion.

"At about eleven?" she said.

"At half past," said Tinker. "And I think he'd like a note from you accepting—it—it would please him, I'm sure. He—he—could take it out, and look at it, you know." It was a little clumsy; but, though he had thought it out carefully, it was the best that he could do.

"You think so? What a lot we know about these things!" said Madame de Belle-Ile with a pleased laugh; and she went forthwith to the ecritoire, and in ten minutes composed the tenderest of billets-doux. Tinker received it from her with a very lively satisfaction, and after a few bonbons, and a desultory chat with her, escorted her down to the Casino.

The rest of the day seemed very long to his impatience, while to Claire, harassed by vague doubt and real dread, it seemed exceedingly short. When the hour for action came, she braced herself, by an effort, to play her part; but it was with a sinking heart that she stole, thickly veiled, and bearing a small hand-bag, out of the hotel and down to the station. She was far too troubled to notice that she was followed by two guardian angels in the shape of a small boy and a brindled bull-terrier.

Courtnay met her on the top of the steps which lead down to the station; and when she found him in a most inharmonious mood of triumph, she began, even so early, to repent of her rashness. Then went down to the station as the train des decaves, the train of the stony-broke, steamed in; and they settled themselves in an empty first-class compartment. Her heart seemed to sink to her shoes as she felt the train move. Then the door opened, and, hauling the panting Blazer by the scruff of his neck, Tinker tumbled into the carriage.

Claire gave a great gasp of relief: the sight of him gave her a faint hope of escape; his presence was a respite. Tinker lifted Blazer on to the seat between him and Courtnay, crying cheerfully, "I thought I'd just missed you! I've got a note for you from Madame de Belle-Ile, and I knew she'd never forgive me if I didn't give it to you!"

Courtnay's florid face had already lost a little colour at the mere intrusion of his inveterate persecutor that alone presaged disaster; at his words his eyes displayed a lively, but uncomfortable tendency to start out of his head. "I don't know what you mean!" he stuttered. "I don't know Madame de Belle-Ile!"

"You don't know Madame de Belle-Ile!" cried Tinker in well-affected amazement and surprise. "Why, only three nights ago I saw you trying to kiss her in the gardens!"

"It's a lie!" roared Courtnay.

"The Beauleighs don't lie," said Tinker curtly.

For the moment, breathless with rage, Courtnay could find no words, and Claire, very pale, stared from one to the other with startled, searching eyes.

"At any rate, here's her letter," said Tinker stiffly, holding it out over Blazer's back.

Claire stooped swiftly forward and took the letter. "I am the person to read that letter," she said with a spirit Courtnay had never dreamed of in her. "It is my right!"

She tore it open, and had just time to read "Mon Artur adore," when Courtnay, with a growl of rage, snatched it from her, and tore it into pieces, crying, "I will not have you victimised by this mischievous young dog! It's an absurd imposition! I claim your trust!"

But the doubt of him which had lurked always in the bottom of Claire's heart had sprung to sudden strength; she looked at him with eyes that were veritably chilling in their coldness, and, turning to Tinker, she said, "Is it true?"

"It is—on my honour," said Tinker.

There was a quivering movement in Claire's throat as she choked down a sob: she rose, and walked down the carriage to the seat opposite Tinker, farthest from Courtnay. Slowly collecting his wits, Courtnay grew eloquent and ran through the whole gamut of the emotions proper to the occasion: honourable indignation, and passion so deep as to be ready to forgive even this heart-breaking distrust. She listened to him in silence with an unchanging face, her lips set thin, her sombre eyes gazing straight before her.

Suddenly despair seized Courtnay, and he gave the rein to the fury which he had been repressing with such difficulty. "At any rate, I'll be even with you, you young dog!" he cried savagely. "I'm going to throw you out of the train!"

"Oh, no; you're not!" said Tinker pleasantly. "By the time you've thrown Blazer out there won't be enough of you left to throw me out."

Courtnay jumped up with a demonstrative hostility; Tinker hissed; with an angry snarl Blazer drew in his tongue and put out his teeth, and Courtnay sat down. For a while he was silent, seeking for an object to vent his rage on; they could hear him grinding his teeth. Then he burst out at Claire, taunting, jeering, and abusing.

"That's enough!" cried Tinker angrily. "Pstt! Pstt! At him, Blazer! At him!"

For a few seconds Courtnay tried fighting, but his upbringing in France had not fitted him to cope with a heavy bull-terrier. When the train ran into the station at Nice, he was out on the footboard, on the further side, yelling lustily.

"Come on quick, before there's a fuss!" cried Tinker, catching up Claire's handbag, and opening the door. They jumped down, Tinker whistled Blazer, and the three of them bustled along the platform.

"I've no ticket!" gasped Claire, who every moment expected Courtnay to be upon them.

"I thought of that! I've got one for you!" said Tinker; and before Courtnay had quite realised that the train had stopped, they were out of the station.

Tinker hurried his charge along the line of fiacres, and stopped at a victoria and pair.

"Hola, cocher!" he said. "From the Couronne d'Or? Wired for to drive a lady and a boy to Monte Carlo?"

"Oui, monsieur!" cried the driver, gaily cracking his whip.

They scrambled in; and the horses stepped out. Tinker knelt on the seat, looking back over the hood. They were almost out of sight of the station when he fancied that he saw a hatless figure run out of it into the road. It might have been only fancy; they were so far off he could not trust his sight. Three minutes later he dropped down on the seat with a sigh of relief. "That's all right!" he said.

"Oh," said Claire, "how can I ever thank you? You've saved me—oh, what haven't you saved me from!"

"A bad hat—a regular bad hat," said Tinker gravely.

"You wonderful boy!" she cried, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Tinker wriggled uncomfortably. He often wished that there were not quite so many women in the world who insisted on embracing him.

"Well, you're a kind of cousin, you see," he said by way of defence.

After a while Claire cooled from her excitement to the cold understanding of her folly. Then she grew, very naturally, bitterly unhappy, and to his horror Tinker heard the sound of a stifled sob.

"I think, if you'll excuse me," he said hurriedly, "I'll go to sleep." And, happily for his comfort, his pretence at slumber was soon a reality. It was no less a comfort to Claire: she had her cry out, and felt the better for it.

When the carriage drew up before the Hotel des Princes, they found an excited group about the doorway. Sir Everard Wigram was the centre of it, raging and lamenting. He had missed his daughter, and with his usual good sense was taking all the world into his confidence. Lord Crosland and Sir Tancred stood on one side; and it is to be feared that Sir Tancred was enjoying exceedingly the distress of his enemy.

"Leave the bag to me! I'll give it to you to-morrow," whispered Tinker as the horses stopped. "Say we've been for a drive. I shan't split!"

As Claire stepped out of the carriage, her father rushed up to her, crying, "What does this mean? Where have you been? What have you been doing?"

"Oh," said Claire coolly, raising her voice that all the curious group might hear, "I've been for a drive with Cousin Hildebrand. I couldn't find you to tell you I was going." And taking out her purse, she stepped forward to pay the coachman.

Tinker, keeping the bag as low as he could, slipped through the group. Lord Crosland hurried after him, and caught him by the shoulder. "Where have you really been?" he said. "What happened? Where's Courtnay?"

"I've been for a drive with my cousin," said Tinker, looking up at him with eyes of a limpid frankness.

"Ah, let's see what you've got in that bag."

"Can't. It's locked," said Tinker shortly.

"Well, never mind. I owe you fifty pound," said Lord Crosland joyfully.

Tinker stopped short and his face grew very bright. "Do you?" he said. "I think I should like it in gold—a fiver at a time."



CHAPTER TEN

TINKER'S FOUNDLING

On the following afternoon Tinker met Madame de Belle-Ile hurrying out of the hotel in a scarlet travelling costume.

At the sight of him she stopped short and cried, "Have you heard the sad news?"

"No; what sad news?" said Tinker.

"About poor Monsieur Courtnay! He has had an accident; he is laid up at Nice, ill among strangers! I go; I fly to nurse him!"

"Nurse that brute!" said Tinker quickly. "That—that is a waste of kindness."

Madame de Belle-Ile's face fell, and then flushed with anger. "You are a horrid and detestable boy!" she cried angrily.

"Oh, no! I'm not! It's quite true," said Tinker quietly, and he looked at her seriously. He wanted to warn her; then he saw that he could not do so without revealing Claire's secret. "I wish I could tell you about him," he went on. "But I can't. He really is a sweep!"

"You are an impertinent little wretch!" she said, and left him.

"Au revoir," said Tinker gently.

But she only tossed her head, and hurried on. Yet Tinker's honest expression of opinion had impressed her: she had a belief in the instinct of children generally and, like most people who came into contact with him, she had a strong belief in the instinct of Tinker. She tried to forget his words; but they kept recurring to her, and in spite of herself, unconsciously, they put her on her guard.

Tinker watched her out of sight, then he had half a thought of telling Claire that she had gone to Courtnay, doubtless at his summons. But he saw quickly that there was no need, and dismissed the thought from his mind. Also, he kept out of his cousin's way for some days; he had a feeling that,—however grateful she might be to him, the sight of him, reminding her of how badly Courtnay had behaved, would be unpleasant to her.

However, he watched her from a distance, and saw that she was pale and listless. Then he saw with great pleasure that Lord Crosland contrived to be with her a good deal, that he even neglected the system for her. But for all this pleasure, he was not quite easy in his mind; the knowledge that he had done his grand-uncle Bumpkin the service of saving him from such a son-in-law as Courtnay was a discomfort to him: he felt that this was a matter which must be set right, and he kept his eyes open for a chance. He looked, too, for the return of Courtnay and Madame de Belle-Ile; but the days passed and they did not return.

One morning he found himself in an unhappy mood. It seemed to him that his wits had come to a standstill; for three days no new mischief had come the way of his idle hands, and his regular, dally, mischievous practices had grown so regular as almost to have acquired the tastelessness of duties. The peculiar brightness and gaiety of Monte Carlo life had begun to pall upon him. Loneliness was eating into his soul; for of all the French boys who paraded the gardens of the Temple of Fortune, he could make nothing. Their costumes, which were of velvet and satin and lace, revolted him; their lack of spirit, their distaste for violent movement, their joy in parading their revolting costumes filled him with wondering contempt. As for the little French girls, he was at any time uninterested in girls; and these spindle-shanked precocities walked on two-inch heels, and tried to fascinate him with the graces of mature coquettes. His careful politeness was hard put to it to conceal his distaste for their conversation. Possibly he was hankering after a healthier life; but at any rate he, who was generally so full of energy, had mooned listlessly about the gardens all the morning, with a far-away look in his eyes, and the air of a strayed seraph.

During his mooning about he had passed several times a little girl who looked English. She sat on a seat in the far corner—a strange, shy, timid child, watching with a half-frightened wonder the strikingly-dressed women and children who strolled up and down, chattering shrilly. He gave her but indifferent glances as he passed; but, thanks to his father's careful training of his natural gift of observation, the indifferent glance of that child of the world took in more of a fellow-creature than most men's careful scrutiny. He saw that she was frail and big-eyed, that her frock was ill-fitting and shabby, her hat shabbier, her shoes ready-made, that she wore no gloves, and that her mass of silky hair owed its unsuccessful attempts at tidiness to her own brushing. He summed her up as that archetype of patience, the gambler's neglected child.

Just before he went to his dejeuner, he saw that she was sitting there still. He took that meal with his father and Lord Crosland; and instead of hurrying off, directly he had eaten his dessert, to some pressing and generally mischievous business, he sat listening to their talk over their coffee and cigars, and only left them at the doors of the Casino. He strolled along the terrace, moody and disconsolate, able to think of nothing to amuse him, and, as he came to the end of the gardens, he saw a group of French children gathered in front of the seat on which the little girl was sitting, and, coming nearer, he heard jeering cries of "Sale Anglaise! Sale Anglaise!"

In a flash Tinker's face shone with a very ecstasy of pure delight, and he swooped down on the group. The child was clutching the arm of the seat, and staring at her tormentors with parted lips and terrified eyes. For their part, they were enjoying themselves to the full. They had found a game which afforded them the maximum of pleasure, with the minimum of effort; and just as Tinker swooped down, a cropped and bullet-headed boy in blue velvet threw a handful of gravel into her face. She threw up her hands and burst into tears; the children's laughter rose to a shrill yell; and with extreme swiftness Tinker caught the bullet-headed boy a ringing box on the right ear and another on the left. The boy squealed, turned, clawing and kicking, on Tinker, and, in ten seconds of crowded life, had learned the true significance of those cryptic terms an upper-cut on the potato-trap, a hook on the jaw, a rattler on the conk, and a buster on the mark. He lay down on the path to digest the lesson, and his little friends fled, squealing, away.

The little girl slipped off the seat and said "Thank you," between two sobs.

Tinker's face was one bright, seraphic smile as he took off his hat, and, with an admirable bow, said, "May I take you to your people?"

The bullet-headed boy rose to his feet and staggered away.

"Uncle's still in that big house," said the little girl, striving bravely to check her sobs.

"That's a nuisance," said Tinker thoughtfully; "for we can't get at him."

"I think he's forgotten all about me. He often does," said the little girl, without any resentment; and she dusted the gravel off her frock.

"I might bolt in and remind him."

"They won't let us in—only grown-ups," said the little girl. "Uncle tried to get them to let me in; but they wouldn't."

"They're used to letting me in," said Tinker—"and hauling me out again," he added. "It brightens them up. You tell me what he's like."

Being a girl, the child was able to describe her uncle accurately: but when she had done, Tinker shook his head:

"He must be just like a dozen other Englishmen in there," he said. "And they wouldn't give me time to ask each one if he were your uncle."

The little girl sighed, and said, "It doesn't matter, thank you," and, sitting down again on the seat, resumed her patient waiting, drooping forward with eyes rather dim.

Tinker studied her face, and his keen eye told him what was wrong.

"Have you had dejeuner?" he said sharply.

"No-o-o," said the little girl reluctantly.

"Then you've had nothing since your coffee this morning?"

"No, but it doesn't matter. Uncle is rather forgetful," said the little girl, but her lips moved at the thought of food as a hungry child's will.

"This won't do at all! Come along with me. It's rather late, but we'll find something."

Her face brightened for a moment; but she shook her head, and said, "No, I mustn't go away from here. Uncle might come back, and he would be so angry if he had to look for me."

Tinker shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heel, and was gone. She looked after him sadly. She would have liked him to stay a little longer; it was so nice to talk to an English boy after ten days in this strange land; and he seemed such a nice boy. But she only drooped a little more, and stared out over the bright sea with misty eyes, composing herself to endure her hunger.

Tinker went swiftly to the restaurant of the Hotel des Princes, where the waiters greeted him with affectionate grins, and, addressing himself to the manager, set forth his new friend's plight, and his wishes. The manager fell in with them on the instant, only too pleased to have the chance of obliging his most popular customer; and, in five minutes, Tinker left the restaurant followed by a waiter bearing a tray of dainties, all carefully chosen to tempt the appetite of a child. They took their way to the gardens, and the little girl brightened up at the sight of the returning Tinker. But when the waiter set the tray on the seat, she flushed painfully, and though she could not draw her hungry eyes away from the food, she stammered, "T-t-thank you very m-m-much. B-b-but I haven't any money."

Tinker gave the waiter a couple of francs, and bade him come for the tray in half an hour. Then he said cheerfully, "That's all right. The food's paid for; and whether you eat it or not makes no difference. In fact, you may as well."

The child looked from his face to the food and back again, wavering; then said, with a little gasp, "Oh, I am so hungry."

Tinker took this for a consent, put some aspic of pate de foie gras on her plate, and watched her satisfy her hunger with great pleasure, which was not lessened by the fact that, for all her hunger, she ate with a delicate niceness. He had feared from her neglected air that her manners had also been neglected. After the aspic, he carved the breast of the chicken for her, helped her to salad, and mixed the ice water with the sirop to exactly the strength he liked himself; after the chicken, he helped her to meringues, and after the meringues lighted the kirsch of the poires au kirsch, which he had chosen because it always pleased him to see the kirsch burn, and ate one of the pears himself, while she ate the others. When she had finished her little sigh of content warmed his heart.

He put the tray behind the seat, and settled down beside her for a talk. Now that she was no longer hungry, she was no longer woebegone, and her laugh, though faint, was so pretty that he found himself making every effort to set her laughing. They talked about themselves with the simple egoism of children; and he learned that her name was Elsie Brand; that she was ten years old—nearly two years younger than himself—that her mother had died many years ago, and that she had lived with her father in his Devonshire parsonage by the sea till last year, when he, too, had died. Then her Uncle Richard had taken her away to live with him in London. Her story of her life in London lodgings set Tinker wondering about that Uncle Richard, and piecing together the details Elsie let fall about his late rising, his late going to bed, his morning headache and distaste for breakfast, he came to the conclusion that he was a bad hat who lived by his somewhat inferior wits.