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lamps gleamed in the grounds, and there was a strong smell of gas in the air.
    "Not that way this time?" questioned, rather than asserted, Gonsalez.
    "Most certainly not that way," replied Manfred decidedly.
CHAPTER IV. PREPARATIONS
    When an advertisement appeared in the Newspaper Proprietor announcing that there was--
    For sale: An old-established zinco-engraver's business with a splendid new plant and a stock of chemicals.
    everybody in the printing world said "That's Etherington's." To the uninitiated a photo-engraver's is a place of buzzing saws, and lead shavings, and noisy lathes, and big bright arc lamps.
    To the initiated a photo-engraver's is a place where works of art are reproduced by photography on zinc plates, and consequently used for printing purposes.
    To the very knowing people of the printing world, Etherington's was the worst of its kind, producing the least presentable of pictures at a price slightly above the average.
    Etherington's had been in the market (by order of the trustees) for three months, but partly owing to its remoteness from Fleet Street (it was in Carnaby Street), and partly to the dilapidated condition of the machinery (which shows that even an official receiver has no moral sense when he starts advertising), there had been no bids.
    Manfred, who interviewed the trustee in Carey Street, learnt that the business could be either leased or purchased; that immediate possession in either circumstances was to be had; that there were premises at the top of the house which had served as a dwelling-place to generations of caretakers, and that a banker's reference was all that was necessary in the way of guarantee.
    "Rather a crank," said the trustee at a meeting of creditors, "thinks that he is going to make a fortune turning out photogravures of Murillo at a price within reach of the inartistic. He tells me that he is forming a small company to carry on the business, and that so soon as it is formed he will buy the plant outright."
    And sure enough that very day Thomas Brown, merchant; Arthur W. Knight, gentleman; James Selkirk, artist; Andrew Cohen, financial agent; and James Leech, artist, wrote to the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies, asking to be formed into a company, limited by shares, with the object of carrying on business as photo-engravers, with which object they had severally subscribed for the shares set against their names.
    (In parenthesis, Manfred was a great artist.)
    And five days before the second reading of the Aliens Extradition Act, the company had entered into occupation of their new premises in preparation to starting business.
    "Years ago, when I first came to London," said Man-£red, "I learned the easiest way to conceal one's identity was to disguise oneself as a public enemy. There's a wealth of respectability behind the word 'limited', and the pomp and circumstance of a company directorship diverts suspicion, even as it attracts attention."
    Gonsalez printed a neat notice to the effect that the Fine Arts Reproduction Syndicate would commence business on October 1, and a further neat label that 'no hands were wanted', and a further terse announcement that travellers and others could only be seen by appointment, and that all letters must be addressed to the Manager.
    It was a plain-fronted shop, with a deep basement crowded with the dilapidated plant left by the liquidated engraver. The ground floor had been used as offices, and neglected furniture and grimy files predominated.
    There were pigeonholes filled with old plates, pigeonholes filled with dusty invoices, pigeonholes in which all the debris that is accumulated in an office by a clerk with salary in arrear was deposited.
    The first floor had been a workshop, the second had been a store, and the third and most interesting floor of all was that on which were the huge cameras and the powerful arc lamps that were so necessary an adjunct to the business.
    In the rear of the house on this floor were the three small