“That,” began one of the Harrisons ponderously, “would, of course, largely depend——”      

       “I'll take five thousand. Lock, stock, and barrel, including the present staff, an even five thousand. How's that?”      

       “Five thousand is a large——”      

       “Take it or leave it.”      

       “My dear sir, you hold a pistol to our heads. However, I think that our client might consent to the sum you mention.”      

       “Good. Well, directly I get his check, the thing's his. By the way, who is your client?”      

       Mr. Harrison coughed.     

       “His name,” he said, “will be familiar to you. He is the eminent financier, Mr. Geoffrey Windlebird.”      

  

       THE DIVERTING EPISODE OF THE EXILED MONARCH     

       Fifth of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, September 1916]     

       The caoutchouc was drawing all London. Slightly more indecent than the Salome dance, a shade less reticent than ragtime, it had driven the tango out of existence. Nor, indeed, did anybody actually caoutchouc, for the national dance of Paranoya contained three hundred and fifteen recognized steps; but everybody tried to. A new revue, “Hullo, Caoutchouc,” had been produced with success. And the pioneer of the dance, the peerless Maraquita, a native Paranoyan, still performed it nightly at the       music-hall where she had first broken loose.     

       The caoutchouc fascinated Roland Bleke. Maraquita fascinated him more. Of all the women to whom he had lost his heart at first sight, Maraquita had made the firmest impression upon him. She was what is sometimes called a fine woman.     

       She had large, flashing eyes, the physique of a Rugby International forward, and the agility of a cat on hot bricks.     

       There is a period of about fifty steps somewhere in the middle of the three hundred and fifteen 

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