“Did you send that letter?” I said.

“Rather! You ought to have seen it, Bertie! One of the best gent’s ordinary threatening letters I ever wrote.”

“But where’s the sense of it?”

“Bertie, my lad,” said Bingo, taking me earnestly by the coat-sleeve, “I had an excellent reason. Posterity may say of me what it will, but one thing it can never say⁠—that I have not a good solid business head. Look here!” He waved a bit of paper in front of my eyes.

“Great Scott!” It was a cheque⁠—an absolute, dashed cheque for fifty of the best, signed Bittlesham, and made out to the order of R. Little.

“What’s that for?”