Dacre's door once more.
He opened the door himself, his man not yet having returned.
'Ah, monsieur,' he cried, 'back already? You don't mean to tell me you
have so soon got to the bottom of the silver spoon entanglement?'
'I think I have, Mr. Dacre. You were sitting at dinner opposite Mr
Vincent Innis. You saw him conceal a silver spoon in his pocket. You
probably waited for some time to understand what he meant by this, and
as he did not return the spoon to its place, you proposed a conjuring
trick, made the bet with him, and thus the spoon was returned to the
table.'
'Excellent! excellent, monsieur! that is very nearly what occurred,
except that I acted at once. I had had experiences with Mr. Vincent
Innis before. Never did he enter these rooms of mine without my
missing some little trinket after he was gone. Although Mr. Innis is a
very rich person, I am not a man of many possessions, so if anything
is taken, I meet little difficulty in coming to a knowledge of my
loss. Of course, I never mentioned these abstractions to him. They
were all trivial, as I have said, and so far as the silver spoon was
concerned, it was of no great value either. But I thought the bet and
the recovery of the spoon would teach him a lesson; it apparently has
not done so.
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