He listened with thunderous calm whilst his pretty daughter told the story of her narrow escape.

    'You sounded your horn?' he insisted.

    'Yes, father, I am sure I sounded the horn.'

    'And you were going, of course, at a reasonable pace,' said Mr Mansar.

    In his early days he had had some practice at the law in the County Courts. Anthony Newton recognised the style and felt it was an appropriate moment to step in.

    'You quite understand, Mr Mansar, that I completely exonerate Miss Mansar from any responsibility,' he interjected. 'I am perfectly sure she sounded the horn, though I did not hear it. I am completely satisfied and can vouch for the fact that she was proceeding at a very leisurely pace, and whatever fault there was, was mine.'

    Anthony Newton was a very keen student of men, particularly of rich men. He had studied them from many angles, and one of the first lessons he learnt in presenting a claim, was to exonerate these gentlemen from any legal responsibility. The rich hate and loathe the onus of legal responsibility. They will spend extravagant sums in law costs to demonstrate to the satisfaction of themselves and the world that they are not legally responsible for the payment of a boot-black's fee. The joy of wealth is generosity. There was never a millionaire born who would not prefer to give a thousand than to pay a disputed penny.

    Mr Mansar's puckered face relaxed.

    'I shall certainly not allow you to be the loser, Mr—'

    'Newton is my name.'

    'Newton. You are not in the firm of Newton, Boyd and Wilkins, are you, the rubber people?'

    'No,' said Anthony. 'I never touch rubber.'

    'You are not the pottery Newton, are you?' asked Mr Mansar hopefully.

    'No,' said Anthony gravely, 'we have always kept clear of pots.'

    After Mr Mansar had, by cross-examination, discovered that he wasn't one of the Warwickshire Newtons, or Monmouth Newtons, or a MacNewton of Ayr, or one of those Irish Newtons, or a Newton of Newton Abbot, but was just an ordinary London Newton, his interest momentarily relaxed.

    'Well, my dear,' he said, 'what shall we do?'

    The girl smiled.

    'I think at least we ought to ask Mr Newton to lunch,' she said and the old man, who seemed at a loss as to how the proceedings might reasonably be terminated or developed, brightened up at the suggestion.

    'I noticed that you mentioned me by name. Of course, my daughter told you—' he said.

    Anthony smiled.

    'No, sir,' he replied, 'but I know the city rather well and, of course, your residence in this part of the world is as well known as—'

    'Naturally,' said Mr Gerald Mansar. He had no false ideas as to his fame. The man who had engineered the Nigerian oil boom, the Irish linen boom, who floated the Milwaukee paper syndicate for two millions, could have no illusions about his obscurity.

    'You are in the city yourself, Mr Newton?'

    'Yes,' admitted Anthony.

    He was in the city to the extent of hiring an office on a first floor of a city building; and it was true he had his name painted on the door. It was an office not big enough to swing a cat, as one of his acquaintances had pointed out. Anthony however, did not keep cats. And if he had kept them, he would certainly have never been guilty of such cruelty.

    The lunch was not an unpleasant function, for a quite unexpected factor had come into his great scheme. Nobody knew better than Anthony Newton that it was Mr Mansar himself who every Saturday morning drove the Daimler into Pullington, and when Anthony had purchased his racketty car, spending many hours in the application of 'Binko' to endow it with a more youthful complexion, he had not dreamt that the adventure would end so pleasantly. He knew that Mr Millionaire Mansar had a daughter—he had a vague idea that somebody had told him she was pretty. He did not anticipate when he engineered his accident so carefully, that it would be at her expense.

    For, whatever else he was, Anthony Newton was an honest adventurer. He had decided that there was money in honest adventure; he had reached this conclusion after he had made a careful study of the press. There were other adventurers whose names figured conspicuously in the police court reports. They were all ingenious and painstaking men, but their ingenuity and foresight were employed in ways which made no appeal to one who had strict, but not too strict, views on the sacredness of property.

    Some of these adventurers had walked into isolated post offices, a mask over their faces and a revolver in their hands and had carried off the contents of the till, amidst the loud protests of postal officials who were on the spot. Others had walked into banks similarly disguised and had drawn out balances which were certainly not due to them.

    And Anthony, thinking out the matter, decided that it was quite possible, by the exercise of his mental talent, to secure quite a lot of money without taking the slightest risks.

    He wished to know Mr Mansar. Mr Mansar, in ordinary circumstances, was unapproachable. To step into his office and demand an interview was almost as futile as stepping up to the stamp counter in St Martin's-le-Grand, and asking to see the Postmaster-General. Mr Mansar was surrounded by guards, inner and outer, by secretaries, by heads of departments, by general managers and managing directors, to say nothing of commissionaires, doorkeepers, messengers and plain clerks.

    There are two ways of getting acquainted with the great. One is to discover their hobbies, which is the weakest side of their defence, and the other is to drop in upon them on their holidays. The man you cannot meet in the City of London is very accessible in the Hotel de la Paix.

    But apparently Mr Mansar never took a holiday, and his only hobby was keeping alive an illusion of his profound genius.

    Lunch over, and Anthony's object achieved, there seemed no excuse for his lingering. He awaited, with some confidence, the grave intimation that a car was ready to take him to the station, and that Mr Mansar would be glad if he would dine with him at his London house on Thursday.