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Augustus Longcord could not understand, and maybe none of his audience could have told him, for at Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square Mr. Augustus Longcord passed as a humorist. The stranger himself appeared unaware that he was being made fun of. "You have been misinformed," assured him the stranger. "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Augustus Longcord.

Not that the stranger had said this in so many words; Sir William's cousin gathered that he thought it, and felt herself in agreement with him. For Mr. Longcord and his partner, as representatives of the best type of business men, the stranger had a great respect. With what unfortunate results to themselves has been noted.

"It is nothing," replied the stranger in his sweet low voice, and passed on. "Well what about this theatre," demanded Mr. Longcord of his friend and partner; "do you want to go or don't you?" Mr. Longcord was feeling irritable. "Goth the ticketh may ath well," thought Isidore. "Damn stupid piece, I'm told." "Motht of them thupid, more or leth.

"Not what I call a smart young man," was the opinion of Augustus Longcord, who was something in the City. "Thpeaking for mythelf," commented his partner Isidore, "hav'n'th any uthe for the thmart young man. Too many of him, ath it ith." "Must be pretty smart if he's one too many for you," laughed his partner.

The stranger laughed at recollection of them "that even here, in this place, they are generally referred to as 'Darby and Joan." "Yes," said the girl, "that is true. Mr. Longcord gave them that name, the second evening after our arrival. It was considered clever but rather obvious I thought myself."

"Give me a man, who can take care of himself or thinks he can," declared Augustus Longcord, "and I am prepared to give a good account of myself. But when a helpless baby refuses even to look at what you call your figures, tells you that your mere word is sufficient for him, and hands you over his cheque-book to fill up for yourself well, it isn't playing the game."

"It will come to me," mused Mrs. Devine. "It is someone years ago, when I was a girl in Devonshire. Thank you, if it isn't troubling you, Harry. I left it in the dining-room." It was, as Mr. Augustus Longcord explained to his partner Isidore, the colossal foolishness of the stranger that was the cause of all the trouble.