position in society is judged by the kind of house he lives in, and that it is social wisdom to pay a high rent for a small house in a discreetly "good" locality, rather than a low rent for a much better house in a deteriorated suburb. That was the year in which he purchased Eagle House, a pompous, old-fashioned residence standing in its own grounds in Highbourne Gardens.

Highbourne Gardens was one of those London suburbs which contrive to preserve a faint aroma of gentility for many years after the real gentlefolk have left it. It had many old houses of the plain and specious order, inhabited a century ago by great London merchants. In the floors of these houses might be found vast beams of some foreign wood, hard enough to turn the keenest chisel; in the gardens at their backs were copper beeches, mulberry trees, and an occasional cedar of Lebanon. Modern London, with its vast invasion of mean streets, stopped respectfully before the proud exclusiveness of Highbourne Gardens. It was one of the last localities to have roads which were marked "Private," guarded by locked gates, and to employ watchmen in faded liveries, who dwelt in tiny sentry-boxes and at stated hours collected the letters of the residents.

It was precisely the kind of neighbourhood for such a man as Archibold Masterman to make his first social experiment, and he was quick to recognise its advantages. Eagle House, Highbourne Gardens, was a thoroughly respectable address; if it did not convey the impression of social distinction, it clearly did imply solid competence, which was a good deal better. Jones, the well-known city tailor, lived there, and drove a pair of horses which any lord might envy; there were half a dozen brokers who kept as good tables as any man in London; and there was Loker, the famous manufacturer of soaps, whose rhymed advertisements met the eye in every railway-carriage. According to the views of Archibold Masterman, in his present stage of social enlightenment, these illustrious persons composed a real aristocracy of solid merit.

Above all, there was in Highbourne Gardens a church, at which most of these prosperous persons were regular attendants, and Archibold Masterman was shrewd enough to see that such a church was admirably adapted to the plan of social advancement which he had in view. It was not an Episcopal church, it was true; but that scarcely mattered in a neighbourhood which was by long tradition Non-conformist. It was enough for him that it contained the people he wished most to know, and his first act on settling at Eagle House was to rent the most expensive pew in the church which then chanced to be at liberty. The day when he took possession of this pew was a red-letter day in his life. He was conscious that he was well-dressed, and that he and his family were favourably remarked. Loker, the soap manufacturer, took the collection in his aisle, and when Masterman put a new five-pound note upon the plate, he knew that he had created a sensation. When he left the church, Loker shook his hand with great cordiality, and from that hour his position was assured.

All this was, of course, many years ago. Since then he had played his cards so well that he had become almost the best-known man in the locality. He was certainly esteemed the wealthiest. He was a deacon in the church, vice Loker deceased, and he now trod the aisles with the collection plate, and kept a jealous eye upon its contents. Among the church folk his record for generosity stood high. Among the younger men the story of his life had become a stimulating tradition. There were two versions of this tradition. In the young men's societies, and at their annual club dinner, he was accustomed to tell a touching story of how he once did a piece of humble work which no one else would touch, and found his fidelity rewarded by sudden promotion, which gave him his first real chance in life. This story never failed to arouse loud cheers, and when irate parents found their boys unwilling to black their own shoes or weed the garden, they would cry, "Remember Masterman." Among a few old cronies in the building trade, in convivial moments, this tradition took a different form. To them he boasted that he bought his first plot of land by issuing a cheque when he had nothing in the bank, only borrowing the money just in time to prevent discovery.

"It was a prison or a fortune," he was accustomed to remark. "And I took the risk. I took the risk, and see what I am to-day." Whereat his old cronies, particularly Grimes, a small builder in Tottenham, who were all more or less under financial obligations to him, would applaud him even more vigorously than the church young men.

The whole character of the man may be discerned in the incident. That he should have risked a prison to make a fortune was nothing to be ashamed of; although he had sense enough to know that it was not the kind of story which would be received with acclamation by the church young men. Therefore to them he gave a milder version, suited to their innocence. But in his heart he was proud of his own daring, still prouder of his triumph. His blood thrilled pleasurably whenever he recalled that perilous and nearly fatal morning—his sudden decision to buy the land whose speculative value none but he could recognise, the bold bluff he practised on the sellers, the false cheque which he knew put the handcuffs oh his wrists, the mad, breathless rush across London to secure the money at any rate of interest from any kind of lender. And then the ecstatic moment when, just ten minutes before the bank closed, he had paid in the five thousand pounds which saved his credit. In the end he had made twenty thousand pounds out of that land, and from that moment he dated his prosperity. He had taken risks, and that was to him the equivalent of heroism. Life was full of risks, and the man who dared nothing was a coward. It was the simple philosophy of the buccaneer, the pirate, the adventurer. Had he lived a hundred years earlier and been bred to the sea, he would have gloried in the black flag, and would have competed with Captain Kidd for terrifying fame. The very joy of living lay in taking risks.

He had been taking risks ever since, although time and prosperity had taught him caution and a more sober craft. Sometimes, and especially since he had become a resident in Highbourne Gardens, he had resolved to content himself with the kind of business which avoided speculative perils, but the old instinct always proved too strong for him. Show him an opportunity that offered the chance of great and sudden profit, and he could no more help putting all he had in jeopardy to secure it than can the old gambler refuse one more cast of the dice. But under the chastenings of his new respectability he had become more and more secretive in these dubious transactions. His own family never once suspected them. All that they knew was that there were recurring periods when he went about the house in grim silence, and sat up half the night in the little room which he called his office. At such times his face seemed to harden; new lines appeared about the eyes and the firm mouth; but it always remained impassive and inscrutable. Some day the cloud would lift suddenly; the grim toiler in the midnight office came forth, jovial, loud-voiced, ten years younger; and there was a period of joyous extravagance, a new pair of horses in the stable, a conservatory added to the drawing-room, a large subscription to the church funds, and the genial stir and tumult of dinner and lawn-tennis parties. After a time the cloud rolled back again, but his friends were alike ignorant of the causes that produced or the triumphs which dissolved it.

So Masterman lived his life, and it was part of the man that the church had come to occupy a considerable place in it. He felt that he owed it gratitude, for had it not done much to forward his social ambitions? He no longer moved in it humbly, as a man sedulous of notice; he had long since become its undisputed king. The day was past when he was grateful for the hand-shake of a