the Thames, that he was not such a fool as not to know how Mr. Locket
would "work" the mystery of his marvellous find. Nothing could help
it on better with the public than the impenetrability of the secret
attached to it. If Mr. Locket should only be able to kick up dust
enough over the circumstances that had guided his hand his fortune
would literally be made. Peter thought a hundred pounds a low bid,
yet he wondered how the Promiscuous could bring itself to offer such
a sum--so large it loomed in the light of literary remuneration as
hitherto revealed to our young man. The explanation of this anomaly
was of course that the editor shrewdly saw a dozen ways of getting
his money back. There would be in the "sensation," at a later stage,
the making of a book in large type--the book of the hour; and the
profits of this scandalous volume or, if one preferred the name, this
reconstruction, before an impartial posterity, of a great historical
humbug, the sum "down," in other words, that any lively publisher
would give for it, figured vividly in Mr. Locket's calculations. It
was therefore altogether an opportunity of dealing at first hand with
the lively publisher that Peter was invited to forego. Peter gave a
masterful laugh, rejoicing in his heart that, on the spot, in the
repaire he had lately quitted, he had not been tempted by a figure
that would have approximately represented the value of his property.
It was a good job, he mentally added as he turned his face homeward,
that there was so little likelihood of his having to struggle with
that particular pressure.



CHAPTER VI.