ANGEL PAVEMENT

see that Mr, Dersingham was taking himself seriously
now as the head of a very flourishing little concern.

"Nothing wrong, I hope, Mr. Dersingham?" he said,
when he had brought in all the books.

Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh, and it was a very
unpleasant sound. It startled Mr. Smeeth.

"Everything's wrong, Smeeth, every damned thing,
unless you can see a way out. Sit down, man, sit down.
We're going to be hours and hours on this job."

Mr. Smeeth sat down, staring at him.

"Golspie's cleared out," Mr. Dersingham continued,
"and he's done us in, absolutely done us in. Oh, the
rotten swine! God, I was a fool to trust that chap a
yard! I ought to have known, I ought to have known.
And now he's gone. I rushed up to that flat of his in
Maida Vale at lunch-time, hoping to catch him in and
have it out with him, but he'd gone—at least, the maid
said he had, and it was only a furnished place he'd taken,
and she'd been taken over with it, so I suppose she wasn't
lying about it. He's going abroad, if he isn't already
gone. Clearing out properly, the rotten crook! This
isn't the only dirty game he's been playing here, if you
ask me. I always thought he had a few more irons in the
fire besides his work here. He never spent more than
half his time with our business. But he's had plenty of
time to do us down/' He was out of his chair now, kick-
ing a ball of crumpled paper about the room.

"But what's happened, Mr. Dersingham? I thought
you knew he might leave us. You told me so a week or
two ago, and you said you were getting him to sign an
agreement, when he drew all that forward commission,
so that you would have the agency/'

"Oh, we've got the agency all right," cried Mj,