"Dear me, Mr. t.i.tmouse!--Did he allege any reason for dismissing you?"

keenly inquired Mr. Quirk.

"Yes, sir"----

"What might it have been?"

"Stopping out longer than I was allowed, and refusing to tell him what this gentleman and I had been talking about."

"Don't think that'll do; sure it won't!" briskly exclaimed Mr. Snap; "no just cause of dismissal that," and he jumped up, whisked down a book from the shelves behind him, and eagerly turned over the leaves.

"Never mind that now, Mr. Snap," said Mr. Quirk, rather petulantly; "surely we have other matters to talk about to-night!"

"Asking pardon, sir, but I think it _does_ matter to me, sir,"

interposed t.i.tmouse; "for on the 10th of next month I'm a beggar--being next door to it _now_."

"Not quite, we trust," said Mr. Gammon, with a benignant smile.

"But Mr. Tag-rag said he'd make me as good as one."

"That's evidence to show malice," again eagerly interjected Mr. Snap, who was a second time tartly rebuffed by Mr. Quirk; even Mr. Gammon turning towards him with a surprised--"Really, Mr. Snap!"

"So Mr. Tag-rag said he'd make you a beggar?" inquired Mr. Quirk.

"He vowed he would, sir!--He did, as true as the gospel, sir!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Quirk and Mr. Gammon--but such a laugh!--not careless or hearty, but subdued, and with a dash of deference in it.

"Well--it perhaps _may_ not signify much, by that time;" said Mr. Quirk, and laughed again, followed by the soft laugh of Mr. Gammon, and a kind of sharp quick sound, like a bark, from Mr. Snap.

"But, gents, you'll excuse me if I say I think it _does_ signify to _me_, and a'n't any laughing matter, by any means!" quoth t.i.tmouse, earnestly, and coloring with anger. "Without being rude, I'd rather come to business, if there's any to be done, without so much laughing at one."

"Laughing at you! my dear sir,--no, no!" exclaimed all three in a breath--"laughing _with_ you," said Mr. Quirk!--"By the time you mention, you may perhaps be able to laugh at Mr. Rag-bag, and everybody else, for"----

[--"No use mincing matters?" he whispered, in a low tone, to Mr. Gammon, who nodded, but in apparently very reluctant acquiescence, and fixed his eyes earnestly on t.i.tmouse.]

"I really think we are warranted, sir, in preparing you to expect by that time--that is, you will understand, sir, if our efforts are successful in your behalf, and if you yield yourself implicitly in all things to our guidance--_that is absolutely essential_--a prospect--we say at present, you will observe, _only_ a prospect--of a surprising and splendid change in your circ.u.mstances!" t.i.tmouse began to tremble violently, his heart beat rapidly, and his hands were bedewed with a cold moisture.

"I hear, gents," said he, thickly; and he also heard a faint ringing in his ears.

"It's not impossible, sir, in plain English," continued Mr. Quirk, himself growing a little excited with the important communication which trembled on the tip of his tongue, "that you may at no distant time (if you really turn out to be the person we are in search of) be put into possession of an estate of somewhere about Ten Thousand a-year"----

The words seemed to have struck t.i.tmouse blind--as he saw nothing for some moments; then everything appeared to be swimming around him, and he felt a sort of faintness or sickness stealing over him. They had hardly been prepared for their communication's affecting their little visitor so powerfully. Mr. Snap hastened out, and in again, with a gla.s.s of water; and the earnest attentions of the three soon restored Mr.

t.i.tmouse to his senses. It was a good while, however, before he could appreciate the little conversation which they now and then addressed to him, or estimate the full importance of the astounding intelligence which Mr. Quirk had just communicated, "Beg pardon--but may I make free to ask for a little brandy and cold water, gents? I feel all over in a kind of tremble," said he, some little time afterwards.

"Yes--by all means, Mr. t.i.tmouse," replied Mr. Quirk--"Mr. Snap, will you be kind enough to order Betty to bring in a gla.s.s of cold brandy and water from the Jolly Thieves, next door?"--Snap shot out, gave the order, and returned in a trice. The old woman in a few minutes' time followed, with a large tumbler of dark brandy and water, quite hot, for which Mr. Gammon apologized, but Mr. t.i.tmouse said he preferred it so--and soon addressed himself to the inspiriting mixture. It quickly manifested its influence, rea.s.suring him wonderfully. As he sat sipping it, Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap being engaged in an earnest conversation, of which he could not comprehend a word, he had leisure to look about him, and observed that there was lying before them a large sheet of paper, at which they all of them often and earnestly looked, filled with marks, so--

[Ill.u.s.tration:

------------------

------------ -------------

---------

]

with writing at the ends of each of them, and round and square figures.

When he saw them all bending over and scrutinizing this mysterious object, it puzzled him (and many a better head than his has a pedigree puzzled before) sorely, and he began to suspect it was a sort of conjuring paper!--

"I hope, gents, that paper's all right--eh?" said he, supported by the brandy, which he had nearly finished. They turned towards him with a smile of momentary surprise, and then--

"We hope so--a vast deal depends on it," said Mr. Quirk, looking over his gla.s.ses at t.i.tmouse. Now what _he_ had hinted at, as far as he could venture to do so, was a thought that glanced across his as yet unsettled brain, that there might have been invoked more than _mere earthly a.s.sistance_; but he prudently pressed the matter no farther--that was all Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap's look-out; _he_ had been no party to anything of the sort, nor would he knowingly. He also observed the same sheets of paper written all over, which Mr. Gammon had filled up at his (t.i.tmouse's) room, the night before; and several new, and old-looking, papers and parchments. Sometimes they addressed questions to him, but found it somewhat difficult to keep his attention up to anything that was said to him for the wild visions which were chasing one another through his heated brain; the pa.s.sage of which said visions was not a little accelerated by the large tumbler of brandy and water which he had just taken.

"Then, in point of fact," said Mr. Quirk, as Messrs. Gammon and Snap simultaneously sat down, after having been for some time standing poring over the paper before Mr. Quirk. "This t.i.ttlebat t.i.tmouse's t.i.tle must have accrued in 18--. That's the point--eh, Gammon?"

"Precisely so," said Mr. Gammon, calmly.

"To be sure," confidently added Snap; who having devoted himself exclusively all his life to the sharpest practice of the criminal law, knew about as much of real property law as a snipe--but it would not have done to appear ignorant, or taking no part in the matter, in the presence of the heir-at-law, and the future great client of the House.

"Well, Mr. t.i.tmouse," at length said Mr. Quirk, with a sort of grunt, laying aside his gla.s.ses--"if _you_ turn out to be the t.i.tmouse we have been speaking of, you are likely, through our immense exertions, to become one of the luckiest men that ever lived! We may be mistaken, but it appears to us that we shall by and by be able to put you into possession of a very fine estate in Yorkshire, worth some 10,000 or 12,000 a-year at the least!"

"You--don't--say--so!" exclaimed t.i.tmouse, elevating his hands and opening his eyes with amazement--"Oh, gents, I do believe we're all dreaming! Is it all true, indeed?"

"It is, Mr. t.i.tmouse--and we are very proud and happy indeed to be the honored instruments of establishing your rights, my dear sir," said Mr.

Gammon, in a most impressive manner.

"Then all the money that's been spent this ten or twelve years has been _my_ money, has it?"

"_If_ we are right, it is undoubtedly as you say," answered Mr. Quirk, giving a quick apprehensive glance at Mr. Gammon.

"Then there'll be a jolly reckoning for some one, shortly--eh? My stars!"

"My dear Mr. t.i.tmouse," said Mr. Gammon, gravely, "you have no more than a just regard for your own interests. There _will_ be a reckoning, and a very terrible one ere long, for somebody--but we've a vast deal to go through, and a vast deal of money to be spent, before we come to discuss _that_ matter! Only let us have the unspeakable happiness of seeing you once fairly in possession of your estates, and our office shall know no rest till you have got all you may be ent.i.tled to--even to the uttermost farthing!"

"Oh, never fear our letting them rest!" said Mr. Quirk, judiciously accommodating himself to the taste and apprehension of his excited auditor--"Those that must give up the goose, must give up the giblets also--ha, ha, ha!" Messrs. Gammon and Snap echoed the laugh, duly tickled with the joke of the head of the firm.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. t.i.tmouse, immensely excited by the conjoint influence of the brandy, and the news of the night; "capital! capital!

hurrah! Such goings on there will be! You're all of the right sort, gents, I see! 'Pon my life, law for ever! There's _nothing_ like it!

Let's all shake hands, gents! Come, if you please, all together! all friends to-night!" And the little fellow grasped each of the three readily-proffered right hands of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, with an energy that was likely to make all the high contracting parties to that quadruple alliance, remember its ratification.

"And is it all a _ready-money_ affair, gents?--or _rent_, and all _that_ kind of thing?" he inquired, after many eloquent expressions of delight.

"Why, almost entirely the latter," answered Mr. Quirk, "except the acc.u.mulations."

"Then, 'pon my soul--I'm a great landlord, am I?"

"Indeed, my dear Mr. t.i.tmouse, you are--(that is, unless we have made a blunder such as--I will say--our house is not _often_ in the habit of making)--and have two very fine houses, one in town and the other in the country."

"Capital! delightful! I'll live in both of them--we'll have _such_ goings on!--And is it _quite_ up to the mark of 10,000 a-year?"

"We really entertain no doubt at present that it is"----

"And such as that I can spend all of it, every year?"

"Certainly--no doubt of it--not the least. The rents are paid with most exemplary punctuality--at least," added Mr. Gammon, with a captivating, an irresistible smile, and taking him affectionately by the hand--"at least they _will_ be, as soon as we have them fairly in _our_ management."

"Oh, _you're_ to get it all in for me, are you?" he inquired briskly.

The three partners bowed, with the most deprecatingly-disinterested air in the world; intimating that, for _his_ sake, they were ready to take upon themselves even _that_ troublesome responsibility.