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have a good deal to say,’ he observed ruefully.
    ‘Eh? Oh, yes, I see what you mean. Well, you would have to risk that. After all, the chances would be dead against her finding out.’
    ‘But she might.’
    ‘Oh, well, if you put it like that, I suppose she might.’
    ‘Freddie, my boy’ said Mr Keeble weakly, ‘I daren’t do it!’
    The vision of his thousand pounds slipping from his grasp so wrought upon Freddie that he expressed himself in a manner far from fitting in one of his years towards an older man.
    ‘Oh, I say, don’t be such a rabbit!’
    Mr Keeble shook his head.
    ‘No,’ he repeated, ‘I daren’t.’
    It might have seemed that the negotiations had reached a deadlock, but Freddie, with a thousand pounds in sight, was in far too stimulated a condition to permit so tame an ending to such a promising plot. As he stood there, chafing at his uncle’s pusillanimity, an idea was vouchsafed to him.
    ‘By Jove! I’ll tell you what!’ he cried.
    ‘Not so loud!’ moaned the apprehensive Mr Keeble. ‘Not so loud!’
    ‘I’ll tell you what,’ repeated Freddie in a hoarse whisper. ‘How would it be if I did the pinching?’
    ‘What!’
    ‘How would it . . .’
    ‘Would you?’ Hope, which had vanished from Mr Keeble’s face, came flooding back. ‘My boy, would you really?’
    ‘For a thousand quid you bet I would.’
    Mr Keeble clutched at his young relative’s hand and gripped it feverishly.
    ‘Freddie,’ he said, ‘the moment you place that necklace in my hands, I will give you not a thousand but two thousand pounds.’
    ‘Uncle Joe,’ said Freddie with equal intensity, ‘it’s a bet!’
    Mr Keeble mopped at his forehead.
    ‘You think you can manage it?’
    ‘Manage it?’ Freddie laughed a light laugh. ‘Just watch me!’
    Mr Keeble grasped his hand again with the utmost warmth.
    ‘I must go out and get some air,’ he said. ‘I’m all upset. May I really leave this matter to you, Freddie?’
    ‘Rather!’
    ‘Good! Then to-night I will write to Phyllis and say that I may be able to do what she wishes.’
    ‘Don’t say “may”,’ cried Freddie buoyantly. ‘The word is “will”. Bally will! What ho!’
    § 4
    Exhilaration is a heady drug; but, like other drugs, it has the disadvantage that its stimulating effects seldom last for very long. For perhaps ten minutes after his uncle had left him, Freddie Threepwood lay back in his chair in a sort of ecstasy. He felt strong, vigorous, alert. Then by degrees, like a chilling wind, doubt began to creep upon him – faintly at first, then more and more insistently, till by the end of a quarter of an hour he was in a state of pronounced self-mistrust. Or, to put it with less elegance, he was suffering from an exceedingly severe attack of cold feet.
    The more he contemplated the venture which he had undertaken, the less alluring did it appear to him. His was not a keen imagination, but even he could shape with a gruesome clearness a vision of the frightful bust-up that would ensue should he be detected stealing his Aunt Constance’s diamond necklace. Common decency would in such an event seal his lips as regarded his Uncle Joseph’s share in the matter. And even if – as might conceivably happen – common decency failed at the crisis, reason told him that his Uncle Joseph would infallibly disclaim any knowledge of or connection with the rash act. And then where would he be? In the soup, undoubtedly. For Freddie could not conceal it from himself that there was nothing in his previous record to make it seem inconceivable to his nearest and dearest that he should steal the jewellery of a female relative for purely personal ends. The verdict in the event of detection would be one of uncompromising condemnation.
    And yet he hated the idea of meekly allowing that two thousand pounds to escape from his clutch . . .
    A young man’s cross-roads.
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    The agony of spirit into which these meditations cast him had