Barnabas Mudge was a man whose intellect was above his station in life; which is not necessarily to rate him with Aristotle or Herbert Spencer. For his station was only that of a jobbing bricklayer. Still, there are bricklayers and bricklayers; and Barnabas was of the brainy variety, which is by no means the most common.

Hitherto, however, his mental gifts had not materially advanced him along the road to prosperity. Possibly luck had been against him, or it may have been that the village of Baconsfield offered but a limited scope for the working of his philosophic mind. At any rate, when we make his acquaintance on a sweltering day in June, we find him occupied in the unworthy task of demolishing a ruinous, isolated cottage on the extreme outskirts of the village.

It was a roasting day. As Barnabas stood on the summit of the wall, sulkily pecking at the solid old brickwork, the sweat ran down his face and arms and even wetted the haft of his pick. To make matters worse, old Joe Gammet was depositing a liberal dressing of fish manure on the adjacent field. The deceased fish were presently to be sown evenly over the ground, not with the design—as the unagricultural reader might suppose—of producing a crop of mackerel, but for the purpose of enriching the soil; but at present the enrichment was more diffused, for the fish, set out in symmetrical heaps, lay under the broiling sun, "wasting their sweetness on the desert air."

"Paw!" exclaimed Barnabas, driving his pick viciously into a joint of the hard old brickwork, "them fish do stink. Talk about the plagues of Egypt! Frogs is nothin' to it. And here comes that old swine with another load."

He glanced sourly at the approaching cart and, taking aim at a spot lower down the wall, struck with the energy of exasperation. But here he encountered mortar of a somewhat different quality. The pick buried itself in a crumbling joint, and, as he wrenched at the haft, a considerable mass of brickwork detached itself and fell to the ground.

"Hallo!" said Barnabas. And well he might. For the falling bricks had disclosed a small, cubical chamber in the wall; which chamber, as he could see by craning forward, was occupied by a covered, earthenware jar. This was highly interesting. It was also just a trifle inopportune; for old Gammet had now approached to within a hundred yards and was smiling with ominous geniality.

Barnabas clambered down and began hastily to repair the effects of his last vigorous stroke, fitting the dislodged bricks back in their places as well as he could in the short time at his disposal. Then he climbed up to his former perch and began to work furiously on another part of the wall with his back to the approaching cart. But this aloofness of manner availed him nothing; for Joe Gammet, having arrived opposite the cottage, halted his cart, and, displaying a miscellaneous assortment of variegated teeth, hailed his acquaintance in a fine, resonant agricultural voice.

"Wot O! Barney!"

Barnabas looked round, with a red handkerchief applied to his nose.

"Here, I say, Joe!" he gasped. "Just you move on with that there perfumery of your'n. It's a-makin' me giddy."

Old Gammet chuckled and expectorated skilfully through a convenient aperture in the teeth. "You needn't be so delicut," said he. "Nice, 'ealthy country smell, I calls it. Nourishin' too. Wot's good for the land is good for them wot lives on the land." He took up a reposeful posture in the dismantled doorway and continued reflectively: "Rare tough job you've got there, Barney. Them old coves could build, they could. Used the right sort of stuff, they did. But there's a patch there that don't look much class of work. Why, I could pull it down with my 'ands!"

He fixed a filmy eye on the piece of wall that Barnabas had just reconstituted and made as if to enter the cottage.

"'Ere, don't you come inside," roared Barnabas. It ain't safe." In illustration of this, he adroitly dislodged a few bricks just over the threshold, causing the aged Gammet to hop out through the doorway with quite surprising agility.

"Couldn't yer see me a-standin' underneath?' the old labourer demanded indignantly.

"I can't see nothin'," said Barnabas. "I can only smell. Would you mind movin' them wallflowers o' yourn a bit further off?"

Old Gammet growled an unintelligible reply, and, sulkily grabbing his horse's bridle, moved away in the direction of the cart track that led into the field. Barnabas watched him impatiently, and, when the cart had fairly entered the field, he looked up and down the lane to satisfy himself that no further interruption threatened, and, once more, scrambled down.

He removed the bricks more carefully this time, with a view to subsequent rebuilding, if necessary, and, thrusting his head into the mysterious cavity in the wall, took off the cover of the jar.

"My eye!" he exclaimed as he applied the organ, thus apostrophised to the mouth of the jar. And perfectly natural the exclamation was; for the jar was full to the brim of glistening golden coins.

For a few seconds he stood petrified with incredulous joy. Then he put forth a tremulous hand and picked out half a dozen or so; and his joy was yet further intensified. He had expected to find some ancient unmarketable coinage that shouted "Treasure Trove" from every worn line of its obsolete device. But nothing of the kind. The quantity of gold that passed through his hands was as a rule; inconsiderable. But he knew a sovereign when he saw it. And he saw it now. Yea, not one, but several hundreds.

"Immortal scissors!" ejaculated Barnabas; and once more I repeat that the exclamation was justified by the circumstances.

Now, to the pellucid intellect of Barnabas Mudge certain facts were at once obvious. Here, for instance, was a negotiable property of some hundreds of pounds—wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. That property, it is true, was not strictly speaking his; but Barnabas was a practical man to whom the pedantic subtleties of the law made no appeal. A more immediate problem was how to secure this heaven-sent windfall; and to this he gave his earnest attention as, having replaced the coins and the jar cover, he once more carefully built up the opening of the hiding-place.

Hitherto, luck had persistently been against him. All the village knew him to be a poor man; and if now he should suddenly blossom out into unexplained wealth, curiosity would be aroused and probably suspicion too. Yet it was useless to be rich if one had to live in the appearance of poverty; and hoarding money was folly as this forgotten treasure plainly demonstrated. However, the final management of this undreamed of wealth could be considered later. The immediate problem was how to get it safely conveyed to his own house unobserved by prying eyes. As his truck, small as it was, could not be pulled in through the doorway, the precious jar would have to be carried out to the road, which might be safe enough if it were previously wrapped in a sack. But the magnitude of the stake was affecting his nerves to the extent of developing a perfectly unreasonable degree of caution and secretiveness.

At present old Gammet was the insuperable obstacle. It was impossible to reopen the hiding-place and bring out the jar until he was gone; for he had seen the loose brickwork, and, being a crafty old rascal, might smell a rat. Thus reasoned Barnabas with absurdly exaggerated wariness—for conscience doth make cowards of us all—and as he pecked listlessly at the wall he kept an anxious eye on the old labourer, cursing his dilatory movements and his ridiculous care for appearances. For Joe Gammet, if his olfactory sense was not very discriminating, had a fastidious eye, and was evidently bent on disposing his unsavoury commodity in something like a symmetrical pattern; in fact, Barnabas could actually see him carefully counting the already deposited heaps and pacing out the distance to the site for the next one.

"Now, there's a fat-headed old blighter for you!" Barnabas growled angrily as he watched. "Why can't he dump the stuff down and hook it?" In his exasperation he found himself counting the heaps, too, and calculating how many more the cart-load would produce. There were at present two complete rows, each of thirty-one heaps, and old Gammet was now engaged in depositing the twenty-sixth heap in the third row; and such is the power of suggestion that Barnabas paused in his labours to see if the dwindling contents of the cart would furnish out the five more heaps that were needed to complete the third row.

As a matter of fact the "perfumery" petered out at the twenty-ninth heap, to Gammet's evident regret, for, having deposited it, he solemnly and with extended arm, counted the whole collection over again. And then, at last, he climbed into the empty cart and disconsolately drove away.

"Now for the oof," said Barnabas as the cart disappeared up the lane. He climbed down from his perch, and, placing in readiness a sack that he had brought with him, began to remove the loose bricks.

But at this moment there smote on his ears the sound of wheels approaching from the opposite direction to that which Gammet had taken.

"Drat it!" he exclaimed, hastily replacing the bricks and creeping to a small side window that commanded a view down the lane. "Who is it now? Why it's Mother Mooney and that slut of a gel of hers. Now what might they be up to?"

At present they were up to speering about in an inquisitive and highly suspicious manner, and meanwhile, Mrs. Mooney was mooring to a fence rail a donkey which was harnessed to a primitive cart. Then, from the latter, the two women extracted each a sack and bustled into the field lately occupied by Mr. Gammet. Barnabas watched them with absolute stupefaction as they bore down on the heaps of fish with unmistakable intentions.

"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed Barnabas. "If they ain't come to pinch the myrrh and frankincense! So that's the way you runs a market garden. But I don't see what they wants a-countin' of 'em for; that there donkey cart won't hold the whole bilin'."

The object of this mysterious proceeding, however, became evident presently, for it appeared that the two marauders, having noted Mr. Gammet's symmetrical arrangement, had decided not to disturb it and thereby draw attention to their unlawful proceedings. They accordingly began operations on number twenty-nine, and, having stowed it in their sacks, carried these to the donkey cart, and returning with two empty ones, renewed the assault on Gammet's property at the last heap on the next row.

"There now!" exclaimed Barnabas admiringly, "there's a artful old baggage for yer! Thinks old Gammet won't miss 'em; and more he won't neither, if she don't take too many."

His good opinion of her was justified in this also, for the discreet Mrs. Mooney contented herself with the removal of the three terminal heaps, leaving Mr. Gammet's symmetrical pattern apparently unchanged, and cleanly picking up even the minutest incriminating fragments.

Barnabas patiently awaited the retreat of the two raiders, and as the donkey cart at length disappeared down the lane, he took another last look round and then once more uncovered the treasure chamber. The jar, though of no great size, was uncommonly heavy, and its introduction to the sack under the agitating circumstances was a matter of some difficulty. When it was safely accomplished and he had staggered out with his prize to the truck and there buried it under a heap of tools, sash-frames, rafters and other debris from the cottage, there followed several agonised minutes, during which he feverishly built up the opening of the chamber—for it would obviously have been madness to leave that cavity exposed to the inquisitive eyes of the villagers. But fortunately no one passed down the lane while he was thus occupied, nor was there anyone in sight when at length he stole forth guiltily and, taking up the pole of the truck, set out homewards at a pace, and with a degree of anxious care, suggestive of a rural funeral. We need not describe that journey in detail; let it suffice to say that at the end of it, Barnabas felt several years older and found himself deeply impressed alike with the surprising populousness of Baconsfield and his own hitherto unsuspected popularity. At length, with a sigh of relief, he trundled his cart into the tiny backyard of the cottage in which he lived all alone; a few moments more and he had borne his treasure in through the back door and shot the bolt; and thus was the first, and most essential, step taken on the road to fortune.

It is needless to say that Mr. Mudge's first proceeding was to ascertain the extent of his wealth; to which end he tenderly bore the jar up the tiny staircase to the room above, where he tipped out its contents, in a glorious shining heap, on the bed, and began, with trembling fingers, to count the coins into smaller heaps in the manner of a glorified Gammet.

The total was no less than six hundred and thirteen golden sovereigns, a sum, the bare contemplation of which produced symptoms of vertigo, and as he knelt by the narrow pallet, running an ecstatic eye over the unbelievable collection, his intellect began once more to occupy itself with the problem of an unsuspicious transition from poverty to affluence. No miser was Barnabas, who might find pleasure in mere gloating over a hoard of unnegotiable riches; but he was too wary to plunge into such sudden selfindulgence as might set the villagers whispering into the ear of the rural constable. What was necessary was some plausible explanation of the change in his financial condition; an explanation that was rendered necessary, not only by the amount of the windfall, but by a very curious circumstance which he had noticed while counting the coins; namely, that the sovereigns all bore the same date. That was, in fact, very odd indeed, and caused Barnabas to speculate in some surprise whether the identity of date was due to a miser's freak, or whether perchance, the hoard was the product of some forgotten bank robbery. Of course, that was no business of his excepting as to its result; which was that he would need to use some extra caution in introducing that large family of twins to a censorious world.

He turned the problem over again and again as he replaced the coins in the jar and deposited the latter in a recess up the bedroom chimney; but he reached no conclusion. He cogitated on it profoundly as he boiled the kettle and made his tea, but still without result; and when, later in the evening, he locked up the house and directed his accustomed steps towards the Black Bull Inn, he was still without the vestige of a plan. And yet the change in his circumstances had not been without some slight and subtle influence; for, yielding to an impulse of which he was hardly conscious, he had, just before starting, transferred, from the oaken chest in his bedroom, in which he kept his little savings, no less a sum than fifteen shillings to the pocket of his mole-skin trousers.

He was not the first to arrive in the tap-room of the "Black Bull." By no means. Over a dozen rustics had already arrived, and were at the moment recreating themselves by throwing darts at a cork target on the wall, and backing their respective abilities by small wagers. As Barnabas entered, old Joe Gammet was in the very act of taking aim; not a particularly good aim it seemed, for the dart ultimately found a billet in the corner of an adjacent picture frame.

"I'll 'ave that shot over again," the wily old rustic affirmed, with great presence of mind. "This 'ere Barney a-baulked me a-comin' in so suddenlike"; and, regardless of the protests of his disconcerted comrades, he stolidly pulled the dart out of the frame, returned to his station, and forthwith made a bull's-eye.

In the inevitable dispute that followed as to the payment of the wager, Barnabas found himself implicated by the ingenious Gammet, who sought thus to divert the attention of the losers. But Barnabas was no gambler, and with equal adroitness, he proceeded to excuse himself.

"My 'and ain't steady enough, Joe," said he. "Tain't recovered yet from that there fish of yourn."

Old Gammet snorted disdainfully. "You makes a rare outcry, you do," said he, "about a few 'eaps o' nice, fresh fish."

"A few!" exclaimed Barnabas. "Dunno what you call a few. There was upwards of eighty 'eaps of 'em."

"Upwards o' ninety, Barney," corrected Gammet.

Barnabas shook his head. "Upwards of eighty, I should say," said he. The actual number had escaped him for the moment, and his rejoinder was dictated by the mere habit of contradiction inherent in the British rustic. But Gammet took him up sharply. "I tell yer there was over ninety o' them 'eaps," he said dogmatically.

The definiteness of the statement aroused Mr. Mudge's attention, and, rapidly recalling the actual numbers, with the little subtraction sum worked by Mrs. Money, he said in a dogged tone:

"Not ninety, Joe, over eighty. I looked at them 'eaps carefully and I've got a educated eye."

"Look 'ere!" exclaimed Gammet, in suppressed excitement, "you ain't the only cove wot's got a educated eye. I got one, too, and I tell yer there's over ninety o' them 'eaps, and I'll bet yer a shullin' I'm right."

Barnabas smiled a discreet smile. "I never bets, Joe," said he, "and you knows it. But, all the same, there worn't ninety o' them 'caps," and with this he strolled through into the bar to obtain the refreshment necessary for the continuance of the discussion, and also to reflect at leisure on the situation. When he returned with his tankard of ale, he was aware of a certain ill-concealed expectancy in the aspect of his rustic acquaintances, strongly suggestive, to his mind of a secret understanding; and his agile intellect instantly framed an appropriate course of action.

"Uncommon sudden this 'ot weather's set in," he remarked to the company in general.

"Remarkable," agreed Gammet, "but to return to this 'ere fish—"

"Not me," said Barnabas, "I've had enough o' that there fish. 'Twixt eighty and ninety 'eaps of 'em—"

"Over ninety," interrupted Gammet.

"Not over," retorted Barnabas. "Under ninety, I say, and I reckon I can trust my eye to a dozen or so."

"There's more'n ninety," said Gammet; and, as Barnabas shook his head once more, old Gammet continued eagerly: "Why don't yer back yer opinion if yer'e so bloomin' cocksure?"

"'Twouldn't be fair," said Barnabas. "I ain't never wrong in a matter o' numbers."

A howl of derision from the assembled company greeted this boastful statement, and Barnabas was so earnestly invited by the assembled rustics to pouch old Gammet's "shullin'," that he, at length, and with much show of reluctance, accepted the wager. But no sooner were the preliminaries arranged, than Bob Chalmers, the miller, came forward and said he'd have a shullin's worth, too, and his example being followed, one after the other, by the rest of the company, Barnabas found himself committed to the extent of twelve shillings; which sum was duly carried in procession by the rustic sportsmen into the bar and deposited with the counterstakes in the custody of the landlord; who, in his turn becoming inoculated, invested a shilling himself. Then the whole twenty-six shillings in assorted coinage having been lodged in an empty Toby jug, and the bar being placed in the care of the landlord's wife, the whole company of gamesters set forth together to inspect the deceased leviathans.

"Now then," said old Gammet, as the party halted at the entrance to the field, and the wagerers furtively produced pocket handkerchiefs 'let's be clear about this 'ere bet. I say there's over ninety o' them 'eaps and you say there's under ninety. Ain't that right?

"Under ninety it is," agreed Barnabas, and with this the procession entered the field.

The procedure was deliberate and exhaustively thorough. Sam Pullet's new ash sapling, that he had cut that very day, was adopted as a tally-stick, and as the procession halted opposite each malodorous heap it was registered by a notch cut on the stick. The process took time, especially as there was a tendency to periodic misunderstandings as to which heap the last notch referred to; but at length, after four false starts had been made and corrected by beginning again de novo, the entire round was completed, and all that remained was to count the notches. This task was assigned to the landlord, and as that sportsman reached the last notch, and falteringly pronounced the word, "eighty-eight," he turned a reproachful eye on Joe Gammet.

"You've made a mistake, Tom," exclaimed the chap-fallen Joseph, who had, however, already detected the discrepancy, but despairingly strove to temporise. He took the stick from the landlord, and, running his fingers down the notches, continued, with ill-feigned triumph: "There, I told yer so, ninety-one it is, ninety-one, I makes it."

"Then you makes it wrong," said Barnabas; and the stick being solemnly passed round, elicited the unanimous verdict of eighty-eight, and a general lowering of the sportsmen's visages. Three times more did that melancholy procession slowly perambulate that marine necropolis, and each time the same depressing result emerged. At the end of the third perambulation there was a deathly silence, and then Bob Chalmers broke into open reproaches.

"Look 'ere, Joe Gammet!" he exclaimed, gloomily, "what's the meanin' o' this 'ere? You told us as how you'd counted 'em yourself. It's my belief as it's a put-up job."

"Nothun o' the kind," retorted Gammet. "Ninety-one 'eaps I counted afore I come away. Somebody 'as bin and stole three of 'em," and here he fixed a suspicious eye on Barnabas, who retorted sarcastically by offering to turn out his pockets.

"Stole yer grandmother, Joe," the landlord growled somewhat obscurely. "Who's a-goin' to steal rotten fish?"

Joe Gammet was about to make an angry rejoinder, possibly resenting the singular ancestry ascribed to him by the landlord's last remark, when Barnabas blandly interposed with the suggestion that they should return and refresh on the proceeds of the gamble; on which there were signs of reviving cheerfulness, especially on the part of the landlord.

The company which left the "Black Bull" that evening was hilarious beyond all precedent, but none of the roysterers staggered homewards in a more joyous frame than did Barnabas Mudge. For he had found a solution to his problem. By this chance, foolish incident he had found a way to that appearance of modest affluence that he had justly considered necessary to his safety. With characteristic energy and judgment he followed out the policy thus suggested by chance. A judicious measurement, privately taken, of the sun-dial on the church porch, with another of the tap-room table, served with due diplomacy to evolve another wager; secret inspections of the weather forecasts in the papers at the village library not only made him an authority on meteorology, but enriched him to the extent of four and threepence. After a few such demonstrations of his infallibility, the cautious rustics began to decline his invitations to back their opinions; but although his actual activities thus necessarily came to an end, a general vague belief grew up, and was fostered by him, that his unerring judgment and neverfailing luck were furnishing him with a handsome increase of income.

It was about this time that Barnabas Mudge embarked on the one and only real gamble of his life. It came about in this wise; returning homeward by a foot-path across the fields, he suddenly perceived a smart-looking gig, drawn by a handsome, mettlesome horse, careering wildly down an adjacent cart track. From the fact that the gig was empty, Barnabas naturally inferred that the horse had bolted, and as he knew that the track led direct to the steep edge of a gravel pit, he perceived that a disaster was imminent. Now Mr. Mudge was not only a man of intellect; he was also a man of action. The galloping horse was yet some distance away, and there was still time for some effort to avert the catastrophe. Accordingly, he ran across the field, and, lurking behind a bush that bordered the cart track, awaited the approach of the runaway until the latter had advanced to within some thirty or forty yards, when he darted out, cap in hand, and proceeded to execute a sort of fandango with much flourishing of arms and encouraging exhortations; as a result of which the astonished horse stopped dead to observe this amazing apparition, and before he could recover his wits, Barnabas had swooped down on him and grabbed him by the bridle. A few seconds later, while Barnabas was still soothing his captive's troubled spirit by equine blandishments, a small man appeared on the cart track, running as fast as two extremely spindly and slightly bandy legs would propel him, and, approaching breathlessly, introduced himself as the proprietor of the horse.

"You've had a narrow squeak, you have," said Barnabas. "Another hundred yards, and he'd have been in the gravel pit."

"I know," said the newcomer. "1 thought of that pit as soon as the beggar started. You're a trump, that's what you are, my lad," and his hand strayed towards his breeches pocket.

And here, once again, we perceive the subtle effect of the invaluable jar of gold. A month ago, Barnabas would have pocketed gleefully the two sovereigns that were exhibited in the stranger's palm. But now he was a man of means and could afford to indulge in the expensive luxury of pride.

"No, thank you," he said, magnanimously waving the sovereigns away. "I'm glad to have been able to help you, but I reckon you'd have done the same for me."

The horsey gentleman returned the coins to his pocket, somewhat reluctantly. "Don't see that you need be so blooming proud," he said, as he relieved Barnabas of his charge; "however, if you won't take a tip in hard cash, perhaps you'll take a tip of another kind; only, mind you," he added impressively, "what I'm going to tell you mustn't go any farther. Is that agreed?"

Barnabas gave the required assurance, and the other resumed:

"Now, listen to me. I'm a trainer—name of Bates; you may have heard of me. Well now, I've got a regular soft thing on, and I'm going to take you into it, only, you mustn't let on to a living soul. You know the Imperial Cup's going to be run for next week at Newmarket." Barnabas nodded. "Well now, there are two outsiders entered for the first two races; King Tom and Columbine. There'll be long odds against them both. Now, if you take those odds, you'll have as near as may be a dead cert. That's a tip that's worth money, and I tell you again to keep it to yourself."

With this and a touch of the hat, he started forward with the mollified horse, leaving Barnabas to return to the foot-path.

Now, Mr. Mudge, as we have said, was no gambler, and his idea of a "dead cert" was not quite the same as a sporting man's. He was flattered by the possession of this special information, but it did not occur to him to make any use of it; indeed, the whole affair had faded from his mind when a chance circumstance recalled it. It was on the evening of the first day of the races that he happened to be in the bar of the "Black Bull" with one or two of his acquaintances. The occasion was a somewhat special one, for, having lured some misguided rustic—much against the advice of his friends—into a bet, he had just brought off a "dead cert" of his own kind, and was in the very act of receiving payment, when a gig stopped at the inn door, and a stout, red-faced man got down and entered. The newcomer was well known to the denizens of the "Black Bull," being none other than Mr. Sandys, the famous bookmaker; a gentleman of suave and genial manners, especially on the present occasion, he having, as he expressed it, done rather a good line during the day. He was even disposed to be facetious, for having assuaged his thirst with a preliminary gulp, he smiled round on the awe-stricken yokels, and invited them jointly and severally to try a bout with Fickle Fortune.

"Hey!" said he, sticking a fat thumb into Barnabas' ribs, "what do you say? Smart-looking chap like you ought to be ready to back his fancy. Come now, what can I do for you?" and here he produced a fat, leathercovered volume and licked the point of a lead pencil.

And then it was that Barnabas Mudge went stark mad. And yet, perhaps, not so mad as he seemed; for in that moment, it flashed upon him that even to lose money gloriously, magnificently, was to add to that reputation that he was so carefully cultivating.

"How do the odds go?" he asked carelessly; and the yokels drew nearer with dilated eyes, while the landlord rested his knuckles on the counter and leaned forward inquisitively. Mr. Sandys produced a list of the fixtures, and began to read off numerical statements which sounded like the delirious mutterings of an insane stockbroker.

"What about King Tom?" inquired Barnabas. "He's in the first event I see."

The bookmaker shook his head. "No class," said he, and added, altruistically, "Don't you go chucking your coppers away on dark 'orses."

"And then," pursued Barnabas, ignoring Mr. Sandys' really well-meant advice, "there's Columbine. She's in the second event, I see."

Mr. Sandys emptied his glass with an impatient gulp. "Another outsider," said he. "Hasn't got a bloomin' look in. You take my tip, and put your money on a horse that's known."

Barnabas took a quick glance round at the circle of open-mouthed rustics, and then announced bumptiously. "I'm a goin' to back my fancy, and I fancies them two 'orses. What'll you give me on the double event?"

The bookmaker was so taken aback that he had to call for another whisky and soda.

"Double event," he roared. "I won't do it. It would be just picking your pocket, and I don't pick the pockets of working men."

"Very well," said Barnabas, "then I must take my money to some one else."

"Oh, if you're going to make somebody a present," said Mr. Sandys, "it may as well be me as anyone else. I'll give yer a hundred to one. That won't hurt you. How much shall we say? A bob?"

Barnabas turned to the bulging-eyed landlord and asked in a casual tone: "Tom, can you let me 'ave such a thing as twenty pound? You shall have it back in half an hour."

There was a breathless silence for two or three seconds. But the gambling fever had seized the landlord as well as Barnabas.Without a word, he retired to some secret lair whence he presently returned with four new five-pound notes.

"Well," said the bookmaker, "if you're clean off your onion, there's nothing more to be said; only, I warn you, you'll lose your money. Won't you think better of it?"

"I'm a-goin' to back my fancy," said Barnabas doggedly; upon which Mr. Sandys formally registered the transaction, explaining that he could not receive the money in a public place, but that it was to be sent to his office.

Having once committed himself to this rash enterprise, Barnabas acted his part consistently. The entreaties of the excited yokels that he would attend the race in person and see that he got fair play, he ignored with magnanimous calm and went about his ordinary business as though a twenty-pound wager were a mere unconsidered trifle, and the oaken chest, from which he had extracted the bulk of his savings, were the repository of untold wealth. But he was the only calm person in the village; and when, in the waning afternoon, he betook himself to the "Black Bull," to await the return of the bookmaker, he found the tap-room packed and overflowing into the bar, where the landlord was compressing a month's business into a couple of hours.

In the interval, his brief attack of speculative mania had died out, and he had come prepared to increase his growing reputation by a stoical indifference to the loss that he had already accepted as inevitable; and while a mob of agitated yokels stood out in the road, eagerly watching for the returning party, Barnabas sat in the Wycombe arm-chair and stolidly read the morning paper, an object of respectful and admiring astonishment to the other inmates of the tap-room.

About five o'clock, there suddenly arose a clamour from without. A score of heads, round-eyed with excitement, appeared at the open window, and a score of voices strove to break in upon his philosophic calm.

"He's a-comin', Barney! He's a-passin' the finger-post now! He's opposight the pond!" and then, after a brief, but clamorous interval, "Here he is!" and the unmoved Barnabas, with his eye glued to an advertisement for a respectable housemaid, heard the gig stop, and was then aware of an irritable, but familiar voice calling out in the bar: "Where's that feller Mudge? Is he here?"

Barnabas laid down the paper and yawned. Then he rose and stretched himself, and, sauntering out into the bar, perceived Mr. Sandys, surrounded by a closely-packed mob of yokels, and grasping a cheque-book and a fountain pen. But he was no longer genial, nor in the least inclined to be facetious. On the contrary he greeted Barnabas with a sour grin and slapped his cheque-book down on the only clean spot on the counter.

"So, here you are," said he. "Confound you! Do you know you've eaten up the whole of my earnings?"

Barnabas muttered an apology, being somewhat confused by the unwonted conduct of the usually genial Sandys, and stood by, watching in some bewilderment, as the bookmaker scribbled on a cheque, accompanying the process with disparaging comments.

"S'welp me! Cleaned out by a bloomin' chaw bacon! Better get a bloomin' nurse to come round with me next time There y'are!"

There was a soft sound of rending, and the astonished Barnabas found himself regarding an elongated slip of mauve paper that flickered at the end of his nose. With slowly dawning comprehension, he took the cheque and laboriously spelled out its mandate to pay to Barnabas Mudge the sum of two thousand pounds; and he was still staring at it, in absolute stupefaction, as the wheels of the bookmaker's gig rolled away down the road.

It is notorious that circumstances alter cases. As Barnabas betook himself homeward with the two thousand pound cheque in his pocket, the jar of gold which had hitherto monopolised his field of mental vision, sank into sudden insignificance. He even debated whether it were not better publicly to announce the discovery of the treasure and so put himself definitely on the right side of the law; but a renewed inspection of the jar, with its glittering contents, produced the inevitable result. Cupidity overcame discretion.

It was two days later that he set out for the neighbouring market town for the purpose of opening an account at the bank to which the landlord of the "Black Bull" had introduced him. Before starting, he had once more brought forth the jar from its hiding-place, with a half-formed intention of taking that with him, too. But the singular identity of date on the coins deterred him; for the strange coincidence would inevitably be noticed by the officials of the bank, and notice was precisely what Barnabas did not desire. So he returned the jar to its hiding-place, to serve as a store to be drawn upon for current expenditure, but first, he took from it ten sovereigns, which he dropped into his trousers pocket. With two thousand pounds at the bank, he could surely afford to jingle a little loose gold.

It was not unobserved by Barnabas that his appearance at the bank in his very indifferent best suit created a somewhat unfavourable impression, and he decided anon to furnish himself with raiment more suitable to his new station.

Meanwhile, the eight-mile walk had developed an appetite and an agreeable thirst which he decided to assuage, regardless of expense, at the "King's Head." But here, too, his costume exposed him to humiliations; notwithstanding which, he worked his way stolidly through the entire bill of fare, watched superciliously by an obviously suspicious waiter, by whom the rather startling bill of costs was laid beside his plate before he had fairly finished his fourth slab of cheese.

Barnabas, however, was not offended. On the contrary, the bill afforded him the means of vindicating his position; which he did by carelessly dropping on it one of the golden gifts of benevolent Providence. The effect, however, on the waiter was not quite what he had hoped; for that supercilious menial, as he retired, turned the coin over and over in his palm as if he were a numismatist inspecting a specimen of some rare and ancient coinage. If Barnabas could have followed him into the office, he would have seen that this numismatic enthusiasm was actually communicated to the manager; by whom the coin was closely examined, rung on the desk and finally weighed in a very queer little balance.

"Now then," said Barnabas to the waiter, who lurked furtively in the vicinity of his seat, with a futile pretence of having forgotten him, "how much longer are you going to be with that there change?"

"Yessir, coming, sir, in one minute," the waiter replied, casting an expectant look towards the door; which at that very moment opened to admit three persons of whom one wore the becoming costume of the local police. The three strangers and the waiter deliberately converged upon Barnabas, and the waiter remarked, more lucidly than grammatically: "This is 'im!"

Barnabas rose, with a chilly sensation at his spine and a premonition of evil. One of the strangers, who looked like a guardsman in mufti, held out his hand, on which lay a sovereign, and opened his mouth and spake:

"I am a police officer. I am going to arrest you on a charge of uttering counterfeit coin, and it's my duty to caution you that anything you say will be used in evidence against you."

Barnabas broke out into a cold sweat. "Do you mean to tell me," he faltered, "that that is a bad sovereign?"

"Rank bad 'un," replied the officer, suddenly dropping his legal phraseology, "and I want to know if you've got any more." Here Barnabas was led unresisting, to the office, where, his pockets being expertly turned out, the other nine sovereigns were brought to light, and laid in an incriminating row on the desk.

"Same old lot!" said the detective, as he ran his eye rapidly over them. "I thought we'd seen the last of Fred Gilbert's masterpieces. Where did yer get this stuff, young man?"

Now Barnabas, as we have said, was a man of intellect; and, at the first appearance of the police, had been completely enlightened by a flash of intuition; and he now saw clearly that his only chance lay in a frank statement of the actual facts. He accordingly recited in detail the circumstances attending the discovery of the treasure, and he was encouraged as he proceeded to observe a slow grin spreading over the officer's countenance.

"Where do you say this house was?" the detective asked.

"Harebell Lane, Baconsfield. Last house on the right 'and side."

The detective chuckled. "That's the place," said he. "We went through it most carefully after Freddie was nobbled at Newmarket, but couldn't find a single piece. Rare downy bird was Frederick. Kept all his moulds and stuff at his place in London. However, you'll have to come along, young man, for if you didn't make this snide money, you prigged it, on your own showing, though I don't suppose the magistrates will be hard on you."

As a matter of fact, they were not. On the contrary, they were disposed to be hilarious to the verge of impropriety; for when Barnabas was charged with "having unlawfully concealed from the knowledge of our Lord the King the finding of a certain treasure," the entire Court, including the prosecuting detective, broke into the broadest of grins; and when the Clerk rose to point out to their Worships that the word "treasure" was defined in the statute as "any gold or silver in coin, plate, or bullion, hidden in ancient times," whereas, the present treasure consisted in a quantity of base metal, the grins gave way to audible chuckles, and the amused justices agreed to take advantage of the legal quibble and acquit the prisoner.

On the very same day, Barnabas surrendered the fateful jar to the detective as "Trustee of our Lord the King," and ventured smilingly to express the hope that His Majesty would make no improper use of his newly acquired wealth.

It is now some years since these stirring events befell, years which have justified Fortune in the favours she was pleased to bestow on Barnabas Mudge; whose honoured name has since then not only adorned a multitude of contractors' noticeboards, but has occasionally appeared at the foot of cheques compared with which the memorable draft of Mr. Sandys would be a mere bagatelle.