"There was nothing on them."
"'True again; there wasn't I showed him my brother's signature at the bottom of a letter, and I asked him if he thought that he could make a nice clean copy of it in the corner of each stamp."
"You never said what you were going to do with it."
"Still correct—I didn't. But you said, 'How much are you going to give me?'"
"Well, you were a stranger to me; you didn't expect I was going to do you a favour for nothing?"
"Hardly. I said I'd give you a hundred pounds, which I thought was pretty fair pay for a little copying. But you said, 'I want five hundred.'"
"You didn't give me five hundred pounds, not you! You know you didn't! Or anything like!"
"Accurate as ever. I couldn't see my way to quite as much as that. I said you should have two hundred."
"That night you never gave me any money at all."
"No. But in the morning I carried to Mr. Isaac Bernstein five bills for a thousand pounds apiece, with, on each, my brother's endorsement in the corner. In exchange, Mr. Bernstein pre-
