"You'll excuse me, Gammon," at length said he, with rather a disturbed air; "but there's no fathoming you, when you get into one of your mysterious humors; and you always look so particularly strange whenever we get on this subject! What can you know that I don't--or _ought_ not to know?"

"Nothing--nothing, I a.s.sure you," replied Gammon, with a gay smile.

"Well, I should have _thought_ not. But, coming back to the main point, if one could but _touch_ some part of that same ten thousand pounds, I _should_ be a happy man!--Consider Gammon, what a draught there has been on my purse for this last sixteen months! Ecod!--the sleepless nights it has cost me!"

"Well, can you doubt being soon richly repaid, my dear sir? Only don't be too hasty."

"I take it, Gammon, we've a lien on the rents now in the banker's hands, and to become due next quarter-day, and on the first instalment of the mesne profits, both for our bill of costs, and in respect of that same bond?"

"Mesne profits, Mr. Quirk?" echoed Gammon, rather quickly; "you seem to take it for granted that they are all ready to be paid over! Even supposing t.i.tmouse not to grow restive, do you suppose it probable that Mr. Aubrey, after so vast and sudden a sacrifice, can have more than a very few thousands--probably hundreds--to keep him and his family from immediate want, since we have reason to believe he has got no other resources than Yatton?"

"Not got 'em--not got 'em? D--n him! then he must look sharp and _get_ 'em, that's all! You know we can't be trifled with; we must look after the interests of--t.i.tmouse. And what's he to start with, if there's no mesne profits forthcoming? But, hang it! they must; I should say a gentle pressure, by-and-by, as soon as Aubrey's fairly got out of Yatton, must produce money, or _security_--he must know quant.i.ties of people of rank and substance that would rush forward, if they once heard him squeal"----

"Ah, you're for putting the thumbscrews on at once--eh?" inquired Gammon, with subdued energy, and a very strange sort of smile.

"Ay--capital--that's _just_ what I meant!"--quoth Quirk.

"Eugh! you heartless old reprobate!" thought Gammon, nearly on the point of expressing as much; but his momentary excitement pa.s.sed off un.o.bserved by Mr. Quirk. "And, I must say, I agree with you," added Gammon, calmly, "we ought in justice to see you first reimbursed your very heavy outlays, Mr. Quirk."

"Well, that's honorable, Gammon.--Oh, Gammon, how I _wish_ you would let me make a friend of you!" suddenly added Mr. Quirk, eying wistfully his surprised companion.

"If you have one sincere, disinterested friend in the world, Mr. Quirk, I am he," said Mr. Gammon, throwing great warmth into his manner, perceiving that Mr. Quirk was laboring with some communication of which he wished to deliver himself.

"Gammon, Gammon! how I _wish_ I could think so!" replied Quirk, looking earnestly, yet half distrustingly, at Gammon, and fumbling about his hands in his pockets. The mild and friendly expression of Gammon's countenance, however, invited communicativeness; and after softly opening and shutting the two doors, to ascertain that no one was trying to overhear what might be pa.s.sing, he returned to his chair, which he drew closer to Gammon, who noticed this air of preparation with not a little curiosity.

"I may be wrong, Gammon," commenced Mr. Quirk, in a low tone; "but I do believe you've always felt a kind of personal friendship towards me; and there ought to be no secrets among friends. _Friends_, indeed? Perhaps it's premature to mention so small a matter; but at a certain silversmith's, not a thousand miles from the Strand, there's at this moment in hand, as a present from me to you"--(Oh dear, dear! Mr. Quirk!

what a shocking untruth! and at your advanced period of life, too!)--"as elegant a gold snuff-box as can be made, with a small inscription on the lid. I hope you won't value it the less for its being the gift of old Caleb Quirk"----he paused and looked earnestly at Mr. Gammon.

"My dear Mr. Quirk, you have taken me," said his bland partner, apparently with great emotion, "quite by surprise. Value it? I will preserve it to the latest moment of my life, as a memorial of one whom the more I know of, the more I respect and admire!"

"You, Gammon, are in your prime--scarce even that--but I am growing old"----tears appeared to glisten in the old gentleman's eyes; Gammon, looking much moved, shook him cordially by the hand in silence, wondering what upon earth was coming next. "Yes;--old Caleb Quirk's day is drawing to a close--I feel it, Gammon, I feel it! But I shall leave behind me--a--a--child--an only daughter, Gammon;" that gentleman gazed at the speaker with an expression of respectful sympathy;--"Dora: I don't think you can have known Dora so long, Gammon, without feeling a _leetle_ interest in her!" Here Gammon's color mounted rapidly; and he looked with feelings of a novel description at his senior partner. Could it be possible that old Quirk wished to bring about a match between his daughter and Mr. Gammon? That gentleman's thoughts were for a moment confused. All he could do was to bow with an earnest--an anxious--a deprecating air; and Mr. Quirk, rather hastily, proceeded,--"and when I a.s.sure you, Gammon, that it is in your power to make an old friend and his only daughter happy and proud,"--Gammon began to draw his breath hurriedly, and to look more and more apprehensively at his senior partner,--"in short, my dear friend Gammon, let me out with it at once--my daughter's over head and ears in love with t.i.tmouse! She is, so help me Heaven!"

["Whew!" thought Gammon, suddenly and infinitely relieved.]

"Ah, my dear sir, is that all?" he exclaimed, and shook Mr. Quirk cordially by the hand,--"at length you have made a friend of me indeed!

But, to tell you the truth, I have long suspected as much; I have indeed!"

"Have you really? Hang me if anything can escape your lynx's eyes!--Well! there _is_ no accounting for tastes, is there?--especially among the women? Poor Dora's quite lost her heart--quite--she has--so help me Heaven!" continued Mr. Quirk, energetically.

"Well, my dear sir, and why this _surprise_?" inquired Gammon, earnestly. "I consider t.i.tmouse to be a very handsome young fellow; and that he is already rapidly acquiring very gentlemanly manners; and as to his _fortune_--really--when one thinks of the thing--it would be most desirable to bring it about! Indeed, the sooner his heart's fixed, and his word's pledged, the better--for you must of course be aware that there will be many schemers on the look-out to entrap his frank and inexperienced nature--look, for instance, at Tag-rag."

"Eugh!" exclaimed Mr. Quirk, with a sudden motion of sickening disgust--"the old beast! I smoked him long ago! Now, _that_ I call villany, Gammon; infernal villany! Don't you?"

"Indeed, indeed, Mr. Quirk, I do; I quite agree with you! Upon my honor, I think it is a part of even _my_ duty towards our confiding and inexperienced client, if possible, to protect him against such infamous designs."

"Right--right, Gammon; by Jove, you're quite right--I _quite_ agree with you!" replied Quirk, earnestly, not observing the lambent smile upon the features of his calm, crafty, and sarcastic companion.

"You see, however," said Gammon, "we've a very delicate and difficult game to play with old Tag-rag. He's certainly a toad, ugly and venomous--but then he's got a jewel in his head--he's got money, you know, and, to serve _our_ purposes, we must really give him some hopes about his daughter and t.i.tmouse."

"Faugh! eugh! feugh! Nasty wretch! a little trollop! It makes one sick to hear of her! And, by the way, now we're on that subject, Gammon, what do we want of this wretch Tag-rag, now that t.i.tmouse has actually got the property?"

"Want of him? Money--security, my dear sir!--money!"

"But, curse me! (excuse me, Gammon,) why go to Tag-rag? _That's_ what I can't understand! Surely any one will advance almost any amount of money to t.i.tmouse, with such security as he can now give!"

"Very possibly--probably"----

"Possibly? Why, I myself don't mind advancing him five thousand--nay, ten thousand pounds--when we've once got hold of the t.i.tle-deeds."

"My dear sir," interrupted Gammon, calmly, but with a very serious air, and a slight change of color which did not happen to attract the notice of his eager companion, "there are reasons why I should dissuade you from doing so; upon my word there are; farther than that I do not think it necessary to go; but I have gone far enough, I know well, to do you a real service."

Mr. Quirk listened to all this with an air of the utmost amazement--even open-mouthed amazement. "What reason, Gammon, _can_ there be against my advancing money on a security worth at least twenty times the sum borrowed?" he inquired with visible distrust of his companion.

"I can but a.s.sure you, that were I called upon to say whether I would advance a serious sum of money to t.i.tmouse on the security of the Yatton estates, I should at all events require a most substantial _collateral_ security."

"Mystery again!" exclaimed Mr. Quirk, a sigh of vexation escaping him.

"You'll excuse me, Gammon, but you'd puzzle an angel, to say nothing of the devil! May I presume for one moment, so far on our personal and professional relationship, as to ask what the reason is on which your advice rests?"

"Mere caution--excessive caution--anxiety to place you out of the way of all risk. Surely, is your borrower so soon to be p.r.o.nounced firm in the saddle?"

"If you know anything, Gammon, that I don't, it's your bounden duty to communicate it! _Look at our articles!_"

"It is; _but do I_ know anything! Prove that, Mr. Quirk, and you need trouble yourself no more!--but, in the mean while, (without saying how much I feel hurt at your evident distrust,) I have but a word or two further to add on this point."

When Mr. Gammon chose, he could a.s.sume an expression of feature, a tone of voice, and a manner which indicated to the person he was addressing, that he was announcing a matured opinion, an inflexible determination--and this, moreover, in the calmest, quietest way imaginable. Thus it was that he now said to Mr. Quirk, "My opinion is, that you should get _some third party_ or parties to advance any required sum, and prevail upon Tag-rag to join in a collateral security, without--if possible--making him aware of the extent of liability he is incurring. By exciting him with the ridiculous notion of an attachment between his daughter and t.i.tmouse, he may be induced to give his signature, as to some complimentary matter of form only--Now, that's my opinion, Mr. Quirk; not lightly or hastily formed; and it rests upon a deep feeling of personal regard towards you, and also our common interests."

Mr. Quirk had listened to this communication in perturbed silence, eying the speaker with a ludicrous expression of mingled chagrin, apprehension, and bewilderment. "Gammon," at length said he, affecting a smile, "do you remember, when you, and I, and Dora, went to the play to see some German thing or other--Foss was the name, wasn't it?"

"Faust--Faust," interrupted Gammon, curiously.

"Well; and now, what was the name of that fellow that was always--Meph--Meph--what was it?"

"Mephistopheles," replied Gammon, unable to repress a smile.

"Ah--yes! so it was. That's all; I only wanted to think of the name--I'd forgotten it. I beg your pardon, Gammon."

This was poor Mr. Quirk's way of being very sarcastic with his friend.

He thought that he had now cut him to the very quick.

"If it hadn't been for what's pa.s.sed between us to-day, Gammon, I should almost begin to think that you were not sincere in your friendship"----

"Did I ever deceive you? Did I ever attempt to overreach you in anything, Mr. Quirk?"

"N--o--o--," replied Mr. Quirk--but not in the readiest manner, or most confident tone in the world,--"I certainly can't say I ever found you out--but I'll tell you what, we each keep a precious sharp look-out after each other, too--don't we?" he inquired with a faint smile, which seemed for a moment reflected upon the face of Gammon.

"How long," said the latter, "I am to be the subject of such unkind suspicions, I do not know; but your nature is suspicious; and as every one has his fault, that is the alloy in the otherwise pure gold of your manly, generous, and straightforward character. Time may show how you have wronged me. My anxious wish is, Mr. Quirk, to witness your daughter occupying a position in which we may all be proud to see her." Here a smile shot across Quirk's anxious countenance, like evening sunshine on troubled waters.

"I do really believe, Gammon," said he, eagerly, "that Dora's just the kind of girl to suit t.i.tmouse"----