"Yes, they'll have to go out," said Hanked, gravely; "a cabinet may defend a bad measure,--they 'll never fight for a bad man."

"And they can't hang this fellow?" said Grog, after a pause.

"Hang! I should think not, indeed."

"Nor even transport him?"

"No, not touch a hair of his head. He'll have to live abroad for a year or two,--in Paris or Rome,--no great hardship if it were Naples; he 'll make a surrender of his property,--an old house somewhere and some brick-fields, a mine of Daryamon coal, and a flax-mill on a river that has scarcely any water, together with a sheaf of bad bills and Guatemala bonds. They 'll want to examine him before the Court, and he'll send them a sick-certificate, showing how agitation and his recent losses have almost made him imbecile; and even Mr. Linklater will talk feelingly about his great reverse of condition."

"It's as good as a play to hear about this," said Grog; "it beats Newmarket all to sticks."

"If it's a play, it won't be a benefit to a good many folk," said Hankes, grinning.

"Well, he _is_ a clever fellow,--far and away cleverer than I ever thought him," said Grog. "Any man--I don't care who he is--can do the world to a short extent, but to go in at them on this scale a fellow must be a genius."

"He _is_ a genius," said Hankes, in a tone of decision. "Just think for a moment what a head it must have been that kept all that machinery at work for years back without a flaw or a crack to be detected, started companies, opened banks, worked mines, railroads, and telegraphs, built refuge harbors, drained whole counties, brought vast tracts of waste land into cultivation, equalizing the chances of all enterprises by making the success of this come to the aid of the failure of that: the grand secret of the whole being the dexterous application of what is called 'Credit.'"

"All that wouldn't do at Doncaster," said Grog; "puff your horse as much as you like, back him up how you will in the betting-ring, if he has n't the speed in him it won't do. It's only on 'Change you can 'brag out of a bad hand.' Dunn would never cut any figure on the turf."

"There you are all wrong; there never yet was the place, or the station, where that man would n't have distinguished himself. Why, it was that marvellous power of his kept me with him for years back. I knew all that was going on. I knew that we hadn't--so to say--coals for one boiler while we had forty engines in full stroke; but I could n't get away. It was a sort of fascination; and when he 'd strike out a new scheme, and say carelessly, 'Call the capital one million, Hankes,' he spoke like a man that had only to put his hand in a bag and produce the money.

Nothing daunted, nothing deterred him. He'd smash a rival company as coolly as you 'd crush a shell under your heel, and he 'd turn out a Government with the same indifference he 'd discharge a footman."

"Well," grumbled out Grog, at last, for he was getting irritable at the exaggerated estimate Hankes formed of his chief, "what has it all come to? Ain't he smashed at last?"

"_He_ smashed!" cried Hankes, in derision. "_He_ smashed! _You_ are smashed! I am smashed! any one else you like is smashed, but _he_ is not! Mind my words, Davis, Davenport Dunn will be back here, in London, before two years are over, with the grandest house and the finest retinue in town. His dinners will be the best, and his balls the most splendid of the season. No club will rival his cook, no equipage beat his in the Park. When he rises in the Lords,--which he 'll do only seldom,--there will be a most courteous attention to his words; and, above all, you'll never read one disparaging word about him in the papers. I give him two years, but it's just as likely he 'll do it in less."

"It may be all as you say," said Grog, sullenly, "though I won't say I believe it myself; but, at all events, it does n't help _me_ on my way to my own business with him. I want these papers of Lackington's out of his hands! He may 'walk into' the whole world, for all that I care: but I want to secure _my_ daughter as the Viscountess,--that's how it stands."

"How much ready money can you command? What sum can you lay your hand on?"

Grog drew his much-worn pocket-book from his breast, and, opening the leaves, began to count to himself.

"Something like fifty-seven pounds odd shillings," said he, with a grin.

"If you could have said twelve or fourteen thousand down, it might be nearer the mark. Conway's people are ready with about ten thousand."

"How do you know?" asked Grog, savagely.

"Dunn told me as much. But he does n't like to treat with them, because the difficulty about the Irish estate would still remain unsettled."

"Then what am I to do? How shall I act?" asked Grog.

"It's not an easy matter to advise upon," said Hankes, thoughtfully, "for Dunn holds to one maxim with invariable tenacity, which is never to open any negotiation with a stranger which cannot be completed in one interview. If you couldn't begin by showing the bank-notes, he'd not discuss the question at all."

Grog arose and walked the room with hasty steps: he tried to seem calm, but in the impatient gesture with which he threw his cigar into the fire might be read the agitation he could not conquer nor conceal.

"What could you yourself do with him, Hankes?" said he, at last.

"Nothing,--absolutely nothing," said the other. "He never in his life permitted a subordinate to treat, except on his own behalf; that was a fixed law with him."

"Curse the fellow!" burst out Davis, "he made rules and laws as if the world was all his own."

"Well, he managed to have it pretty much his own way, it must be confessed," said Hankes, with a half-smile.

"He is to be in town to-morrow, you said," muttered Grog, half aloud.

"Where does he stop?"

"This time it will be at Calvert's, Upper Brook Street. His house in Piccadilly is ready, but he 'll not go there at present."

"He makes a mystery of everything, so far as I can see," said Grog, angrily. "He comes up by the express-train, does n't he?" grumbled he, after a pause.

"If he has n't a special engine," said Hankes. "He always, however, has his own _coupe_ furnished and fitted up for himself and never, by any chance, given to any one else. There 's a capital bed in it, and a desk, where he writes generally the whole night through, and a small cooking-apparatus, where he makes his coffee, so that no servant ever interrupts him at his work. Indeed, except from some interruption, or accident on the line, the guard would not dare to open his door. Of course _his_ orders are very strictly obeyed. I remember one night Lord Jedburg sent in his name, and Dunn returned for answer, 'I can't see him.'"

"And did the Prime Minister put up with that?" asked Davis.

"What could he do?" said the other, with a shrug of the shoulder.

"If I were Lord Jedburg, I'd have unkennelled him, I promise you _that_, Simmy. But here, it's nigh twelve o'clock, and I have a mass of things to do. I say, Hankes, could you contrive to look in here to-morrow evening, after nightfall? I may have something to tell you."

"We were strictly confidential,--all on honor, this morning, Kit," said the other, whispering.

"I think you know _me_, Mister Simmy," was all Grog's reply. "I don't think my worst enemy could say that I ever 'split' on the fellow that trusted me."

A hearty shake-hands followed, and they parted.

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE TRAIN

The up-train from Holyhead was a few minutes behind time at Chester, and the travellers who awaited its arrival manifested that mixture of impatience and anxiety which in our railroad age is inseparable from all delay. One stranger, however, displayed a more than ordinary eagerness for its coming, and compared the time of his watch repeatedly with the clock of the station.

At length from the far-away distance the wild scream of the engine was heard, and with many a cranking clash and many a heavy sob the vast machine swept smoothly in beneath the vaulted roof. As the stranger moved forward to take his place, he stopped to hear a few words that met his ear. It was a railroad official said: "Mr. Davenport Dunn delayed us about a quarter of an hour; he wanted to give a look at the new pier, but we have nearly made it up already." "All right!" replied the station-master. The stranger now moved on till he came in front of a coupe carriage, whose window-blinds rigidly drawn down excluded all view from without. For an instant he seemed to fumble at the door, in an endeavor to open it, but was speedily interrupted by a guard calling out, "Not there, sir,--that's a private carriage;" and thus warned, the traveller entered another lower down the line. There were two other travellers in the same compartment, apparently strangers to each other.

As the stranger with whom we are immediately concerned took his place, he slipped into his pocket a small latch-key, of which, in the very brief attempt to try the door of the private carriage, he had successfully proved the utility, and, drawing his rug across his knees, lay calmly back.

"Here we are, detained again," grumbled out one of the travellers. "I say, guard, what is it now?"

"Waiting for a telegram for Mr. Davenport Dunn, sir. There it comes! all right" A low bell rings out, a wild screech following, and with many a clank and shock the dusky monster sets out once more.

"Public convenience should scarcely be sacrificed in this manner,"

grumbled out the former speaker. "What is this Mr. Dunn to you or to me that we should be delayed for his good pleasure?"

"I am afraid, sir," replied the other, whose dress and manner bespoke a clergyman, "that we live in an age when wealth is all-powerful, and its possessors dictate the law to all poorer than themselves."

"And can you tell me of any age when it was otherwise?" broke in the last arrival, with a half-rude chuckle. "It's all very fine to lay the whole blame of this, that, and t' other to the peculiar degeneracy of our own time; but my notion is, the world grows neither worse nor better." There was that amount of defiance in the tone of the speaker that seemed to warn his companions, for they each of them maintained a strict silence. Not so with him; he talked away glibly about the influence of money, pretty plainly intimating that, as nobody ever met the man who was indifferent to its possession, the abuse showered upon riches was nothing but cant and humbug. "Look at the parsons," said he; "they tell you it is all dross and rubbish, and yet they make it the test of your sincerity whenever they preach a charity sermon. Look at the lawyers, and they own that it is the only measure they know by which to recompense an injury; then take the doctors, and you 'll see that their humanity has its price, and the good Samaritan charges a guinea a visit."

The individuals to whom these words were addressed made no reply; indeed, there was a tone of confident assumption in the speaker that was far from inviting converse, and now a silence ensued on all sides.

"Do either of you gentlemen object to tobacco?" said the last speaker, after a pause of some duration; and at the same time, without waiting for the reply, he produced a cigar-case from his pocket, and began deliberately to strike a light.