"You are not telling the truth," she said, looking at him with eyesthat danced. "I read all the advertisement columns in The Times thismorning, and I am quite sure that you did not advertise."

"I meant to advertise," said Bones gently. "I had the idea last night; that's the very piece of paper I was writing the advertisement on."

He pointed to a sheet upon the pad.

"A secretary? The very thing! Let me think."

He supported his chin upon one hand, his elbow upon another.

"You will want paper, pens, and ink – we have all those," he said."There is a large supply in that cupboard. Also india-rubber. I amnot sure if we have any india-rubber, but that can be procured. And aruler," he said, "for drawing straight lines and all that sort ofthing."

"And a typewriter?" she suggested.

Bones smacked his forehead with unnecessary violence.

"A typewriter! I knew this office wanted something. I said to Aliyesterday: 'You silly old ass – '"

"Oh, you have a girl?" she said disappointedly.

"Ali," said Bones, "is the name of a native man person who is devotedto me, body and soul. He has been, so to speak, in the family foryears," he explained.

"Oh, it's a man," she said.

Bones nodded.

"Ali. Spelt A-l-y; it's Arabic."

"A native?"

Bones nodded.

"Of course he will not be in your way," ha hastened to explain. "He isin Bournemouth just now. He had sniffles." he explained rapidly, "andthen he used to go to sleep, and snore. I hate people who snore, don'tyou?"

She laughed again. This was the most amazing of all possible employers.

"Of course," Bones went on, "I snore a bit myself. All thinkers do – Imean all brainy people. Not being a jolly old snorer yourself – "

"Thank you," said the girl.

Other tenants or the satellites of other tenants who occupied thepalatial buildings wherein the office of Bones was situated saw, somefew minutes later, a bare-headed young man dashing down the stairsthree at a time; met him, half an hour later, staggering up those samestairs handicapped by a fifty-pound typewriter in one hand, and a chairin the style of the late Louis Quinze in the other, and wondered at theurgency of his movements.

"I want to tell you," said the girl, "that I know very little aboutshorthand."

"Shorthand is quite unnecessary, my dear – my jolly old stenographer,"said Bones firmly. "I object to shorthand on principle, and I shallalways object to it. If people," he went on, "were intended to writeshorthand, they would have been born without the alphabet. Anotherthing – "

"One moment, Mr. Tibbetts," she said. "I don't know a great deal abouttypewriting, either."

Bones beamed.

"There I can help you," he said. "Of course it isn't necessary thatyou should know anything about typewriting. But I can give you a fewhints," he said. "This thing, when you jiggle it up and down, makesthe thingummy-bob run along. Every time you hit one of theseletters – I'll show you… Now, suppose I am writing 'Dear Sir,' Istart with a 'D.' Now, where's that jolly old 'D'?" He scowled at thekeyboard, shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders. "I thought so,"he said; "there ain't a 'D.' I had an idea that that wicked old – "

"Here's the 'D,'" she pointed out.

Bones spent a strenuous but wholly delightful morning and afternoon.

He was half-way home to his chambers in Curzon Street before he realized that he had not fixed the rather important question of salary.

He looked forward to another pleasant morning making good that lapse.

It was his habit to remain late at his office at least three nights aweek, for Bones was absorbed in his new career.

"Schemes Ltd." was no meaningless title. Bones had schemes whichembraced every field of industrial, philanthropic, and social activity.He had schemes for building houses, and schemes for planting rose treesalong all the railway tracks. He had schemes for building motor-cars, for founding labour colonies, for harnessing the rise and fall of thetides, he had a scheme for building a theatre where the audience sat ona huge turn-table, and, at the close of one act, could be twistedround, with no inconvenience to themselves, to face a stage which hasbeen set behind them. Piqued by a certain strike which had caused hima great deal of inconvenience, he was engaged one night working out ascheme for the provision of municipal taxicabs, and he was so absorbedin his wholly erroneous calculations that for some time he did not hearthe angry voices raised outside the door of his private office.

Perhaps it was that that portion of his mind which had been left freeto receive impressions was wholly occupied with a scheme – whichappeared in no books or records – for raising the wages of his newsecretary.

But presently the noise penetrated even to him, and he looked up with atouch of annoyance.

"At this hour of the night! … Goodness gracious … respectablebuilding!"

His disjointed comments were interrupted by the sound of a scuffle, anoath, a crash against his door and a groan, and Bones sprang to thedoor and threw it open.

As he did so a man who was leaning against it fell in.

"Shut the door, quick!" he gasped, and Bones obeyed.

The visitor who had so rudely irrupted himself was a man of middle age, wearing a coarse pea-jacket and blue jersey of a seaman, his peaked hatcovered with dust, as Bones perceived later, when the sound ofscurrying footsteps had died away.

The man was gripping his left arm as if in pain, and a thin trickle ofred was running down the back of his big hand.

"Sit down, my jolly old mariner," said Bones anxiously. "What's thematter with you? What's the trouble, dear old sea-dog?"

The man looked up at him with a grimace.

"They nearly got it, the swine!" he growled.

He rolled up his sleeve and, deftly tying a handkerchief around a redpatch, chuckled:

"It is only a scratch," he said. "They've been after me for two days,Harry Weatherall and Jim Curtis. But right's right all the world over.I've suffered enough to get what I've got – starved on the high seas, and starved on Lomo Island. Is it likely that I'm going to let themshare?"

Bones shook his head.

"You sit down, my dear old fellow," he said sympathetically.

The man thrust his hands laboriously into his inside pocket and pulledout a flat oilskin case. From this he extracted a folded and fadedchart.

"I was coming up to see a gentleman in these buildings," he said, "agentleman named Tibbetts."

Bones opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself.

"Me and Jim Curtis and young Harry, we were together in the Serpent

Queen– my name's Dibbs. That's where we got hold of the yarn about

Lomo Island, though we didn't believe there was anything in it. But when this Dago died – "

"Which Dago?" asked Bones.

"The Dago that knew all about it," said Mr. Dibbs impatiently, "and wecome to split up his kit in his mess-bag, I found this." He shook theoilskin case in Bones's face. "Well, the first thing I did, when I gotto Sydney, was to desert, and I got a chap from Wellington to put upthe money to hire a boat to take me to Lomo. We were wrecked on Lomo."

"So you got there?" said Bones sympathetically.

"Six weeks I was on Lomo. Ate nothing but crabs, drank nothing butrain-water. But the stuff was there all right, only" – he was veryemphatic, was this simple old sea-dog – "it wasn't under the third tree, but the fourth tree. I got down to the first of the boxes, and it wasas much as I could do to lift it out. I couldn't trust any of theKanaka boys who were with me."

"Naturally," said Bones. "An' I'll bet they didn't trust you, thenaughty old Kanakas."

"Look here," said Mr. Dibbs, and he pulled out of his pocket a handfulof gold coins which bore busts of a foreign-looking lady and gentleman."Spanish gold, that is," he said. "There was four thousand in thelittle box. I filled both my pockets, and took 'em back to Sydney whenwe were picked up. I didn't dare try in Australia. 'That gold willkeep,' I says to myself. 'I'll get back to England and find a man whowill put up the money for an expedition' – a gentleman, you understand?"

"I quite understand," said Bones, all a-quiver with excitement.

"And then I met Harry and Jim. They said they'd got somebody who wouldput the money up, an American fellow, Rockefeller. Have you ever heardof him?"

"I've heard of him," said Bones; "he's got a paraffin mine."

"It may be he has, it may be he hasn't," said Mr. Dibbs and rose."Well, sir, I'm very much obliged to you for your kindness. If you'lldirect me to Mr. Tibbetts's office – "

It was a dramatic moment.

"I am Mr. Tibbetts," said Bones simply.

Blank incredulity was on the face of Mr. Dibbs.

"You?" he said. "But I thought Mr. Tibbetts was an older gentleman?"

"Dear old treasure-finder," said Bones, "be assured I am Mr. Tibbetts.

This is my office, and this is my desk. People think I am older because – " He smiled a little sadly, then: "Sit down!" he thundered.

"Let us go into this."

He went into the matter, and the City clocks were booming one when heled his mariner friend into the street.

He was late at the office the next morning, because he was young andhealthy and required nine hours of the deepest slumber that Morpheuskept in stock.

The grey-eyed girl was typing at a very respectable speed the notesBones had given her the evening before. There was a telegram awaitinghim, which he read with satisfaction. Then:

"Leave your work, my young typewriter," said Bones imperiously. "Ihave a matter of the greatest importance to discuss with you! See thatall the doors are closed," he whispered; "lock 'em if necessary."

"I hardly think that's necessary," said the girl. "You see, if anybodycame and found all the doors locked – "

"Idiot!" said Bones, very red.

"I beg your pardon," said the startled girl.

"I was speaking to me," said Bones rapidly. "This is a matter of thegreatest confidence, my jolly old Marguerite " – he paused, shaking athis temerity, for it was only on the previous day that he haddiscovered her name – "a matter which requires tact and discretion, young Marguerite – "

"You needn't say it twice," she said.

"Well once," said Bones, brightening up. "That's a bargain – I'll callyou Marguerite once a day. Now, dear old Marguerite, listen to this."

She listened with the greatest interest, jotting down the preliminaryexpenses. Purchase of steamer, five thousand pounds; provisioning ofsame, three thousand pounds, etc., etc. She even undertook to make acopy of the plan which Mr. Dibbs had given into his charge, and whichBones told her had not left him day nor night.

"I put it in my pyjama pocket when I went to bed," he explainedunnecessarily, "and – " He began to pat himself all over, consternation in his face.

"And you left it in your pyjama pocket," said the girl quietly. "I'lltelephone to your house for it."

"Phew!" said Bones. "It seems incredible. I must have been robbed."

"I don't think so," said the girl; "it is probably under your pillow.

Do you keep your pyjamas under your pillow?"

"That," said Bones, "is a matter which I never discuss in public. Ihate to disappoint you, dear old Marguerite – "

"I'm sorry," said the girl, with such a simulation of regret that Bonesdissolved into a splutter of contrition.

A commissionaire and a taxicab brought the plan, which was discoveredwhere the girl in her wisdom had suggested.

"I'm not so sure how much money I'm going to make out of this," saidBones off-handedly, after a thorough and searching examination of theproject. "It is certain to be about three thousand pounds – it may be amillion or two million. It'll be good for you, dear old stenographer."

She looked at him.

"I have decided," said Bones, playing with his paper-knife, "to allowyou a commission of seven and a half per cent. on all profits. Sevenand a half per cent. on two million is, roughly, fifty thousandpounds – "

She laughed her refusal.

"I like to be fair," said Bones.

"You like to be generous," she corrected him, "and because I am a girl, and pretty – "

"Oh, I say," protested Bones feebly – "oh, really you are not pretty atall. I am not influenced by your perfectly horrible young face, believe me, dear old Miss Marguerite. Now, I've a sense of fairness, asense of justice – "

"Now, listen to me, Mr. Tibbetts." She swung her chair round to facehim squarely. "I've got to tell you a little story."

Bones listened to that story with compressed lips and folded arms. Hewas neither shocked nor amazed, and the girl was surprised.

"Hold hard, young miss," he said soberly. "If this is a jolly oldswindle, and if the naughty mariner – "

"His name is Webber, and he is an actor," she interrupted.

"And dooced well he acted," admitted Bones. "Well, if this is so, whatabout the other johnny who's putting up ten thousand to my fifteenthousand?"

This was a facer for the girl, and Bones glared his triumph.

"That is what the wicked old ship-sailer said. Showed me the money,an' I sent him straight off on the job. He said he'd got a StockExchange person named Morris – "

"Morris!" gasped the girl. "That is my step-father!"

Bones jumped up, a man inspired.

"The naughty old One, who married your sainted mother?" he gurgled.

"My miss! My young an' jolly old Marguerite!"

He sat down at his desk, yanked open the drawer, and slapped down hischeque-book.

"Three thousand pounds," he babbled, writing rapidly. "You'd betterkeep it for her, dear old friend of Faust."

"But I don't understand," she said, bewildered.

"Telegram," said Bones briefly. "Read it."

She picked up the buff form and read. It was postmarked from Cowes, and ran:

"In accordance your telegraphed instructions, have sold yourschooner-yacht to Mr. Dibbs, who paid cash. Did not give name ofowner. Dibbs did not ask to see boat. All he wanted was receipt formoney."

"They are calling this afternoon for my fifteen thousand," said Bones, cackling light-headedly. "Ring up jolly old Scotland Yard, and ask 'emto send me all the police they've got in stock!"