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enough of ‘em dancing here. And this man seems to have money to burn.”
    Hayn nodded. “I meant to come to some arrangment with you over dinner,” he said. “This bird can go down as your first job, on commission. If you’re ready, we’ll start.”
    Stannard assented, and they walked over to the table which had been prepared. Hayn was preoccupied. If his mind had not been simmering with other problems, he might have noticed Stannard’s ill-concealed nervousness, and wondered what might have been the cause of it. But he observed nothing unusual about the younger man’s manner.
    While they were waiting for the grapefruit, he asked a question quite perfunctorily. “What’s this South African’s name?”
    “Templar-Simon Templar,” answered Jerry.
    The name meant nothing at all to Mr. Hayn.
    Chapter VI
OVER the dinner, Hayn made his offer-a twenty per cent commission on business introduced. Stannard hardly hesitated before accepting.
    “You don’t want to be squeamish about it,” Hayn argued. “I know it’s against the law, but that’s splitting hairs. Horse-racing is just as much a gamble. There’ll always be fools who want to get rich without working, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t take their money. You won’t have to do anything that would make you liable to be sent to prison, though some of my staff would be jailed if the police caught them. You’re quite safe. And the games are perfectly straight. We only win because the law of probabilities favours the bank.”
    This was not strictly true, for there were other factors to influence the runs of bad luck which attended the players upstairs; but this sordid fact Mr. Hayn did not feel called upon to emphasize.
    “Yes-I’ll join you,” Stannard said. “I’ve known it was coming. I didn’t think you went on giving and lending me money for looking decorative and doing an odd job or two for you now and again.”
    “My dear fellow-“
    “Dear-fellowing doesn’t alter it. I know you want more of me than my services in decoying boobs upstairs. Are you going to tell me you didn’t know I was caught the other day?”
    Hayn stroked this chin. “I was going to compliment you. How you got rid of that parcel of snow-“
    “The point that matters is that I did get rid of it,” cut in Stannard briefly. “And if I hadn’t been able to, I should have been on remand in Brixton Prison now. I’m not complaining. I suppose I had to earn my keep. But it wasn’t square of you to keep me in the dark.”
    “You knew-“
    “I guessed. It’s all right-I’ve stopped kicking. But I want you to let me right in from now on, if you’re letting me in at all. I’m joining you, all in, and you needn’t bother to humbug me any longer. How’s that?”
    “That’s all right,” said Mr. Hayn, “If you must put things so crudely. But you don’t even have to be squeamish about the dope side of it. If people choose to make fools of themselves like that, it’s their own look-out. Our share is simply to refuse to quibble about whether it’s legal or not. After all, alcohol is sold legally in this country, and nobody blames the publican if his customers get drunk every night and eventually die of D.T.‘s.”
    Stannard shrugged. “I can’t afford to argue, anyhow,” he said. “How much do I draw?”
    “Twenty per cent-as I told you.”
    “What’s that likely to make?”
    “A lot,” said Hayn. “We play higher here than anywhere else in London, and there isn’t a great deal of competition in the snow market. You might easily draw upwards of seventy pounds a week.”
    “Then will you do something for me, Mr. Hayn? I owe a lot of money outside. It’ll take three thousand flat for the first year, to pay off everybody and fit myself up with a packet in hand.”
    “Three thousand pounds is a lot of money,” said Hayn judicially. “You owe me nearly a thousand as it is.”
    “If you don’t think I’m going to be worth it-“
    Mr. Hayn meditated,