“Well,” he said. “I reckon you’ll think me about the biggest fool in Christendom when I tell you the silly joke I fell for this afternoon. But the fact of the matter is that I’m very hard up, and I can’t afford to throw away a chance of a possible piece of commission.” He paused, and Shelley quickly interjected a question before the other could resume his rambling statement.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Moss,” he said; “but I’m afraid I don’t understand. You must begin at the beginning, and go straight through. That’s the only way that we can get this business in order.”

“Okay,” said Moss. “I suppose I was telling the tale in a funny way. Little weakness of mine that I can’t tell a tale straight through in a sensible way.”

“Do your best,” Shelley advised him; and he smiled.

“Well,” he began, “I suppose the fact that I’m hard up, and in the hands of that old skinflint Victor Isaacs, really has nothing to do with the case.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that, Mr. Moss,” Shelley remarked dryly; “but, as a matter of fact, we know all about your financial position already.”

“Do you, by Jove?” A rueful smile spread over the countenance of the young Jew. “What I was really saying all that for, though, was to explain that I am eager to get hold of any sort of job that will bring in a few quid—old Isaacs wants a bit of staving off; but I think if I could let him have fifty within the next few days he would wait a little longer.”

“And then…?” Shelley was quietly insistent.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Moss shrugged his shoulders. “No doubt something or other would turn up, sooner or later,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Micawber,” smiled Shelley, “what precisely does all this lead up to?”

“This,” said Moss. “I had a note this afternoon; and a pretty little wild-goose chase it’s led me, too.”

“A note?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of note?”

“Well, this is it,” said Moss, producing a letter from his pocket, and handing it over.

Shelley took it, handling it very gingerly, and removed it carefully from its envelope. Then he read it aloud, for the benefit of Cunningham, who had sat by almost open-mouthed at the preliminary conversation.