The Cellar-man's appearance, the moment he
put his head in at the door of his master's
private room, suggested that something very
extraordinary must have happened that
morning. There was an approach to alacrity in Joey
Ladle's movements! There was something
which actually simulated cheerfulness in Joey
Ladle's face!

"What's the matter?" asked Vendale.
"Anything wrong?"

"I should wish to mention one thing,"
answered Joey. "Young Mr. Vendale, I have
never set myself up for a prophet."

"Who ever said you did?"

"No prophet, as far as I've heard tell of
that profession," proceeded Joey, "ever lived
principally underground. No prophet,
whatever else he might take in at the pores, ever
took in wine from morning to night, for a
number of years together. When I said to young
Master Wilding, respecting his changing the
name of the firm, that one of these days he
might find he'd changed the luck of the firm—
did I put myself forward as a prophet? No, I
didn't. Has what I said to him come true?
Yes, it has. In the time of Pebbleson
Nephew, Young Mr. Vendale, no such thing
was ever known as a mistake made in a
consignment delivered at these doors. There's a
mistake been made now. Please to remark
that it happened before Miss Margaret came
here. For which reason it don't go against
what I've said respecting Miss Margaret singing
round the luck. Read that, sir," concluded
Joey, pointing attention to a special passage in
the report, with a forefinger which appeared to
be in process of taking in through the pores
nothing more remarkable than dirt. "It's
foreign to my nature to crow over the house I
serve, but I feel it a kind of a solemn duty to
ask you to read that."

Vendale read as follows:—"Note, respecting
the Swiss champagne. An irregularity has
been discovered in the last consignment
received from the firm of Defresnier and Co."
Vendale stopped, and referred to a memorandum-
book by his side. "That was in Mr.
Wilding's time," he said. "The vintage was a
particularly good one, and he took the whole
of it. The Swiss champagne has done very
well, hasn't it?"

"I don't say it's done badly," answered the
Cellarman. "It may have got sick in our
customers' bins, or it may have bust in our
customers' hands. But I don't say it's done
badly with us."

Vendale resumed the reading of the note:
"We find the number of the cases to be quite
correct by the books. But six of them, which
present a slight difference from the rest in the
brand, have been opened, and have been found
to contain a red wine instead of champagne.
The similarity in the brands, we suppose,
caused a mistake to be made in sending the
consignment from Neuchâtel. The error has
not been found to extend beyond six cases."

"Is that all!" exclaimed Vendale, tossing
the note away from him.

Joey Ladle's eye followed the flying morsel
of paper drearily.

"I'm glad to see you take it easy, sir," he
said. "Whatever happens, it will be always a
comfort to you to remember that you took it
easy at first. Sometimes one mistake leads to
another. A man drops a bit of orange-peel on
the pavement by mistake, and another man
treads on it by mistake, and there's a job at
the hospital, and a party crippled for life.
I'm glad you take it easy, sir. In Pebbleson
Nephew's time we shouldn't have taken it
easy till we had seen the end of it. Without
desiring to crow over the house, Young Mr.
Vendale, I wish you well through it. No
offence, sir," said the Cellarman, opening the
door to go out, and looking in again ominously
before he shut it. "I'm muddled and molloncolly,
I grant you. But I'm an old servant of
Pebbleson Nephew, and I wish you well
through them six cases of red wine."

Left by himself, Vendale laughed, and took
up his pen. "I may as well send a line to
Defresnier and Company," he thought, " before
I forget it." He wrote at once in these terms:

"Dear Sirs. We are taking stock, and a trifling
mistake has been discovered in the last consignment
of champagne sent by your house to ours. Six of
the cases contain red wine which we hereby
return to you. The matter can easily be set right,
either by your sending us six cases of the
champagne, if they can be produced, or, if not, by your
crediting us with the value of six cases on the
amount last paid (five hundred pounds) by our firm
to yours. Your faithful servants,

"WILDING AND Co."

This letter despatched to the post, the subject
dropped at once out of Vendale's mind.
He had other and far more interesting matters
to think of. Later in the day he paid the visit
to Obenreizer which had been agreed on
between them. Certain evenings in the week
were set apart which he was privileged to
spend with Marguerite —always, however, in
the presence of a third person. On this
stipulation Obenreizer politely but positively
insisted. The one concession he made was to
give Vendale his choice of who the third person
should be. Confiding in past experience, his
choice fell unhesitatingly upon the excellent
woman who mended Obenreizer's stockings.
On hearing of the responsibility entrusted to her,
Madame Dor's intellectual nature burst suddenly
into a new stage of development. She waited
till Obenreizer's eye was off her and then she
looked at Vendale, and dimly winked.

The time passed—the happy evenings with
Marguerite came and went. It was the tenth
morning since Vendale had written to the Swiss
firm, when the answer appeared on his desk,
with the other letters of the day:

"Dear Sirs, We beg to offer our excuses for
the little mistake which has happened. At the same
time, we regret to add that the statement of our
error, with which you have favoured us, has led to
a very unexpected discovery. The affair is a most
serious one for you and for us. The particulars are
as follows:

"Having no more champagne of the vintage last