“Was it you who put that damned dog in the room?”

“Eh?” said Ukridge. “Why, yes. But we can have a good talk about all that later on,” he proceeded, hastily. “The point at the moment is how the dickens we’re going to persuade this poor worm to collect our insurance money for us. Why, damme, I should have thought you would have——”

“All I can say——” began Victor Beamish, heatedly.

“Yes, yes,” said Ukridge; “some other time. Must stick to business now, laddie. I was saying,” he resumed, “that I should have thought you would have been as keen as mustard to put the job through for your own sake. You’re always beefing that you haven’t any clothes to impress managers with. Think of all you can buy with your share of the swag once you have summoned up a little ordinary determination and seen the thing through. Think of the suits, the boots, the hats, the spats. You’re always talking about your dashed career, and how all you need to land you in a West-end production is good clothes. Well, here’s your chance to get them.”

His eloquence was not wasted. A wistful look came into Teddy Weeks’s eye, such a look as must have come into the eye of Moses on the summit of Pisgah. He breathed heavily. You could see that the man was mentally walking along Cork Street, weighing the merits of one famous tailor against another.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said, suddenly. “It’s no use asking me to put this thing through in cold blood. I simply can’t do it. I haven’t the nerve. But if you fellows will give me a dinner to-night with lots of champagne I think it will key me up to it.”

A heavy silence fell upon the room. Champagne! The word was like a knell.

“How on earth are we going to afford champagne?” said Victor Beamish.

“Well, there it is,” said Teddy Weeks. “Take it or leave it.”

“Gentlemen,” said Ukridge, “it would seem that the company requires more capital. How about it, old horses? Let’s get together in a frank, business-like cards-on-the-table spirit, and see what can be done. I can raise ten bob.”

“What!” cried the entire assembled company, amazed. “How?”

“I’ll pawn a banjo.”

“You haven’t got a banjo.”

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