I caught up the wigs and stuffed them into the box which I locked. Where to hide it? Not in my room, nor in the pantry! nor in any place under my control! Search would reveal it there--infallibly. I must then dispose it in some place not likely to be searched. Where then? For a third time in one evening I was suddenly inspired. Seizing the box, I stole downstairs into my master's private study and, using the utmost caution, I bestowed it behind some mounds of books that were covered with many summers' dust. Heaving a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction I returned to my little chamber and leisurely undressed. Three o'clock chimed as I pulled off my boots. I then removed the last traces of my disguise with a lavish application of soap and water, and last of all I screwed back into its plate the tooth I had removed from my false set earlier in the evening in order more perfectly to resemble my master. After that I got into bed. I felt secure and almost happy--was I not a capitalist? Under my pillow reposed three hundred pounds, and never in my life until then had I possessed more than a paltry fraction of that sum. I rejoiced in determining to bank it on the morrow, and I sleepily assured myself that I would make it the seed of a great fortune. I should have been quite happy, save for one thing. I was already beginning to repent the magnanimity or cowardice which had prevented me from asking Sir William Venner for six hundred pounds instead of three. I felt sure he would have given me six as readily as three, and it was a great opportunity wasted. Wasted! It is terribly sad to look back upon wasted opportunities; a heartrending thing indeed. Even now I recall that circumstance with melancholy. I dreamed of death and murders and shadowy unutterable horrors. Soon after dawn I awoke, bathed in perspiration, and shivering in every limb. There was a sound of rushing waters in my ears, and I retained a shuddersome impression of a dark brooding figure bending over me. With a gasp of terror I plunged my hand beneath my pillow, but my three hundred pounds were safe. The delight of that discovery quickly dispelled the phantoms of my tired fancies, and I arose, with a glad heart, to begin the work of the day, by performing the work that I should have done on the previous night--the clearing up from the dinner party.