a month to find it out, and cost about half the value in fees. You have to advertise the facts, giving the two numbers and dates, once a week for three weeks in the Times, the Gazette, and—er—the Pink One. After that you can attend before the Lord Mayor of London and make a declaration, which has then to be taken to Doctors' Commons to be sworn, and to Somerset House to be stamped."
"Any common doctor can swear?" he asked hopefully.
"Possibly, but not in this case," I replied. "It is the King's Proctor, really."
"I have seen of him in the records," he remarked intelligently. "He interferes."
"I have known people who made the same complaint," I admitted. "All this, you understand, has to be done in person; no agents or intermediaries are allowed. Then you are summoned to attend before a meeting of the directors of the Bank of England, and, after you have produced two householders of the City who enter into bonds that they will be responsible for the money being returned if it has been wrongfully claimed, you receive the amount, less twenty per cent. deduction, in the form of a Treasury Bill payable three months after date upon personal application at the Board of Works. Our English methods are rather elaborate, I suppose, but the authorities are thoroughly safeguarded by the process."
The elderly person groaned in German and sat down and got up again three times.
"Mine frient," he said at length, "you are returning to London yourself in short?"
"Yes; 'Back to the old log cabin once again,' I suppose," I hummed airily.
"Log gabin?" he repeated helplessly; "ach! by steambode, to be sure. Well, you are what you call familiar
