The man was boorish, but I passed it with a glancing jest; after all, it had been his money. As it was still raining, I proposed that we should go to his apartment for the time.
He had a modest room in a cottage on the Boulevard Sainte-Beuve, near at hand. "Even yet," I said, laughing at the conceit, "we are by no means destitute. I have the half of a five-pound note, and logically that is two pounds ten, surely."
"Oh," he said, staring hard at me, "have you half a five-pound note, Sissley?"
"Certainly I have," I replied. "I have carried it about with me for two years."
"That's very strange, because, as a matter of fact, I happen to have half a five-pound note also."
I don't think that I was ever more surprised in my life, although it was only a simple coincidence after all.
"Which end is yours?" demanded Dunford as he hunted through his pocket-book.
"The signature," I replied, producing it. "And yours?"
His was the other end and we laid it down on the table beside mine. Really, they went very well together, although the numbers differed, of course, and the dates. His was for the 3rd of June, 1905, and mine for the 5th of June, 1903; it was scarcely noticeable.
Half mechanically, I took out a pocket-knife, and, placing the two halves together—as it happened they overlapped in the lettering—I began to cut them down to make a perfect whole. It was merely the pastime of an idle moment, I assure you.
"How did you get yours?" I asked carelessly.
"There was a rogue of a fellow that I wouldn't trust with a cracked shilling," he explained. "He must have something on account, he said, so I gave him the other
