"Well, I must say Christianity does n't seem to have disagreed with you.

You 're in capital case,--a little pluffy for work, but in rare health, and sleek as a beaver."

"Always the same. He will have his joke," muttered Hankes, as though addressing some third party to the colloquy.

"I can't say that I have committed any excesses in that line of late,"

said Grog, dryly. "I 've had rather a tough fight with the world!"

"But you've fought it well, and successfully," Davis said the other, with confidence. "Have n't you married your daughter to a Viscount?"

"Who told _you_ that? Who knows it here?" cried Grog, hurriedly.

"I heard it from Fordyce's people a fortnight ago. It was I myself brought the first news of it to Davenport Dunn."

"And what did _he_ say?"

"Well, he didn't say much; he wondered a little how it came about; hinted that you must be an uncommon clever fellow, for it was a great stroke, if all should come right."

"You mean about the disputed claim to the title?"

"Yes."

"He has his doubts about that, then, has he?"

"He has n't much doubt on the subject, for it lies with himself to decide the matter either way. If he likes to produce certain papers, Conway's claim is as good as established. You are aware that they have already gained two of their actions on ejectment; but Dunn could save them a world of time and labor, and that's why he's coming up to-morrow.

Fordyce is to meet him at Calvert's Hotel, and they 're to go into the entire question."

"What are his terms? How much does he ask?" said Grog, bluntly.

"I can't possibly say; I can only suspect."

"What do you suspect, then?"

"Well," said Hankes, drawing a long breath, "my impression is that if he decide for the present Viscount, he 'll insist upon an assignment of the whole Irish property in his favor."

"Two thousand a year, landed property!" exclaimed Grog.

"Two thousand eight hundred, and well paid," said Hankes, coolly; "but that is not all."

"Not all! what do you mean?"

"Why, there's another hitch. But what am I saying?" cried he, in terror.

"I don't believe that I'd speak of these things on my death-bed."

"Be frank and open with me, Simeon. I am a true pal to the man that trusts me, and the very devil to him that plays me false."

"I know it," said the other, gloomily.

"Well, now for that other hitch, as you called it What is it?"

"It's about an estate that was sold under the 'Encumbered Court,' and bought by the late Lord Lackington--at least in his name--and then resold at a profit--" Here he stopped, and seemed as though he had already gone too far.

"I understand," broke in Grog; "the purchase-money was never placed to the Viscount's credit, and your friend Dunn wants an acquittance in full of the claim."

"You've hit it!"

"What's the figure,--how much?"

"Thirty-seven thousand six hundred pounds."

"He 's no retail-dealer, this same Davenport Dunn," said Grog, with a grin; "that much I _will_ say of him."

"He has a wonderful head," said Hankes, admiringly.

"I 'll agree with you, if it save his neck!" said Davis-, and then added, after a moment, "He's bringing up all these documents and papers with him, you said?"

"Yes; he intends to make some settlement or other of the matter before he marries. After that he bids farewell to business forever."

"He'll go abroad, I suppose?" said Davis, not attaching any strong signification to his remark; but suddenly perceiving an expression of anxiety in Hankes's face, he said, "Mayhap it were all as well; he'd be out of the way for a year or so!"

The other nodded an assent.

"He has 'realized' largely, I take it?"

Another nod.

"Foreign funds and railways, eh?"

"Not railways,--no, scrip!" said Hankes, curtly.

"Won't there be a Jolly smash!" said Davis, with a bitter laugh. "I take it there's not been any one has 'done the trick' these fifty years like this fellow."

"I suspect you 're right there," murmured Hankes.

"I have never seen him but once, and then only for a few minutes, but I read him like a printed book. He had put on the grand integrity and British-mercantile-honesty frown to scowl me down, to remind Davis, 'the leg,' that he was in the presence of Dunn, the Unimpeachable, but I put one eye a little aslant, this way, and I just said, 'Round the corner, old fellow,--round the corner!' Oh, didn't he look what the Yankees call 'mean ugly'!"

"He 'll never forget it to you, that's certain."

"If he did, I 'd try and brush up his memory a bit," said Davis, curtly.

"He must be a rare sharp one," added he, after a pause.

"The cleverest man in England, I don't care who the other is," cried Hankes, with enthusiasm. "When the crash comes,--it will be in less than a month from this day,--the world will discover that they're done to the tune of between three and four millions sterling, and I defy the best accountant that ever stepped to trace out where the frauds originated,--whether it was the Railways smashed the Mines, the Mines that ruined the Great Ossory, the Great Ossory that dipped the Drainage, or the Drainage that swamped the Glengariff, not to speak of all the incidental confusion about estates never paid for, and sums advanced on mock mortgage, together, with cancelled scrip reissued, preference shares circulated before the current ones, and dock warrants for goods that never existed. And that ain't all" continued Hankes, to whom the attentive eagerness of Grog's manner vouched for the interest his narrative excited,--"that ain't all; but there isn't a class nor condition in life, from the peer to the poorest laboring-man, that he has n't in some way involved in his rogueries, and made him almost a partner in the success. Each speculation being dependent for its solvency on the ruin of some other, Ossory will hate Glengariff, Drainage detest Mines, Railways curse Patent Fuel, and so on. I 'll give the Equity Court and the Bankrupt Commissioners fifty years and they'll not wind up the concern."

Grog rubbed his hands gleefully, and laughed aloud.

"Then all the people that will be compromised!" said Hankes; "Glumthal himself is not too clean-handed; lords and fine ladies that lent their names to this or that company, chairmen of committees in the House that did n't disdain to accept five hundred or a thousand shares as a mark of grateful recognition for pushing a bill through its second reading; ay, and great mercantile houses that discounted freely on forged acceptances, owning that they thought the best of all security was the sight of a convict-hulk and a felon's jacket, and that no man was such prompt pay as he that took a loan of a friend's signature. What a knockdown blow for all that lath-and-plaster edifice we dignify by the name of Credit, when the world sees that it is a loaf the rogue can take a slice out of as well as the honest man!"

"Won't we have stunning leaders in the 'Times' about it!" cried Grog.

"It will go deuced hard with the Ministry that have made this fellow a peer."