as he walked, and who spoke of the displeasure with which this unseemly arrest would fill "his people."

Presently a bewildered Salvation Army official appeared. Sheard promptly buttonholed him.

"Don't ask me, sir!" he said, in response to the obvious question. "Heaven only knows what it is about! But I can tell you this much: no less than forty thousand pounds has been given away on the Embankment to-night! And in gold! Such an incredible example of ill-considered generosity I've never heard of! More harm has been done to our work to-night than we can hope to rectify in a twelvemonth!

"Of course, it will do good in a few, a very few, cases. But, on the whole, it will do, I may say, incalculable harm. How was it distributed? In little paper bags, like those used by the banks. It sent half the poor fellows crazy! Just imagine—a broken-down wretch who'd lived on the verge of starvation for, maybe, years, suddenly has a bag of sovereigns put into his hand! Good heavens! what madness!"

"Who did the distributing?"

"That's the curious part of it! The bags were distributed by a number of men wearing the dark overcoats and uniform caps of the Salvation Army! That's how they managed to get through with the business without arousing the curiosity of the police. I don't know how many of them there were, but I should imagine twenty or thirty. They were through with it and gone before we woke up to what they had done!"

Sheard thanked him for his information, stood a moment, irresolute; and turned back once more to the Gleaner office.

Thus, then, did a strange personality announce his coming and flood the British press with adjectives.

The sensation created, on the following day, by the news of the Park Lane robbery was no greater than that occasioned by the news of the extraordinary Embankment affair.

"What do we deduce," demanded a talkative and obtrusively clever person in a late City train, "from the circumstance that all thirty of the Park Lane brigands were alike?"

"Obviously," replied a quiet voice, "that it was a 'make-up.' Thirty identical wigs, thirty identical moustaches, and the same grease-paint!"

A singularly handsome man was the speaker. He was dark, masterful, and had notably piercing eyes. The clever person became silent.

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