"Why, there 's more writs after the promoters this morning than ever there was scrip for paid-up capital. We 're all in for it--every man of us."

"Was it a mere bubble, then,--a fraud?"

"I don't know what you call a bubble, or what you mean by a fraud. We had all that const.i.tutes a company: we had a scheme, and we had a lord.

t If an over-greedy public wants grandeur and gain besides, it must be disappointed; as I told the general meeting, 'You don't expect profit as well as the peerage, do you?'"

"You yourself told me there was coal."

"So there was. I am ready to maintain it still. Is n't that money, Bramleigh?" said he, taking a handful of silver from his pocket; "good coin of the realm, with her Majesty's image? But if you asked me if there was much more where it came from--why, the witness might, as the newspapers say, hesitate and show confusion."

"You mean, then, in short, there was only coal enough to form a pretext for a company?"

"I tell you what I mean," said Cutbill, st.u.r.dily. "I bolted from London rather than be stuck in a witness-box and badgered by a cross-examining barrister, and I 'm not going to expose myself to the same sort of diversion here from you."

"I a.s.sure you, sir, the matter had no interest for me, beyond the opportunity it afforded you of exculpation."

"For the exculpatory part, I can take it easy," said Cutbill, with a dry laugh. "I wish I had nothing heavier on my heart than the load of my conscience; but I 've been signing my name to deeds, and writing Tom Cutbill across acceptances, in a sort of indiscriminate way, that in the calmer hours before a Commissioner in Bankruptcy ain't so pleasant. I must say, Bramleigh, your distinguished relative, Culduff, doesn't cut up well."

"I think, Mr. Cutbill, if you have any complaint to make of Lord Culduff, you might have chosen a more fitting auditor than his brother-in-law."

"I thought the world had outgrown the cant of connection. I thought that we had got to be so widely-minded, that you might talk to a man about his sister as freely as if she were the Queen of Sheba."

"Pray do me the favor to believe me still a bigot, sir."

"How far is Lord Culduff involved in the mishap you speak of, Mr.

Cutbill?" said Nelly, with a courteousness of tone she hoped might restore their guest to a better humor.

"I think he 'll net some five-and-twenty thousand out of the transaction; and from what I know of the distinguished Viscount, he 'll not lie awake at night fretting over the misfortunes of Tom Cutbill and fellows."

"Will this--this misadventure," stammered out Augustus, "prevent your return to England?"

"Only for a season. A man lies by for these things, just as he does for a thunderstorm; a little patience, and the sun shines out, and he walks about freely as ever. If it were not, besides, for this sort of thing, we City men would never have a day's recreation in life; nothing but work, work, from morning till night. How many of us would see Switzerland, I ask you, if we didn't smash? The Insolvent Court is the way to the Rhine, Bramleigh, take my word for it, though it ain't set down in John Murray."

"If a light heart could help to a light conscience, I must say, Mr.

Cutbill, you would appear to possess that enviable lot."

"There 's such a thing as a very small conscience," said Cutbill, closing one eye, and looking intensely roguish. "A conscience so un.o.btrusive that one can treat it like a poor relation, and put it anywhere."

"Oh, Mr. Cutbill, you shock me," said Ellen, trying to look reproachful and grave.

"I 'm sorry for it, Miss Bramleigh," said he, with mock sorrow in his manner.

"Had not our friend L'Estrange an interest in this unfortunate speculation?" asked Bramleigh.

"A trifle,--a mere trifle. Two thousand I think it was. Two, or two-five-hundred. I forget exactly which."

"And is this entirely lost?"

"Well, pretty much the same; they talk of sevenpence dividend, but I suspect they 're over-sanguine. I 'd say five was nearer the mark."

"Do they know the extent of their misfortune?" asked Ellen, eagerly.

"If they read the 'Times' they 're sure to see it. The money article is awfully candid, and never attempts any delicate concealment like the reports in a police-court. The fact is, Miss Bramleigh, the financial people always end like Cremorne, with a 'grand transparency' that displays the whole company!"

"I 'm so sorry for the L'Estranges," said Ellen, feelingly.

"And why not sorry for Tom Cutbill, miss? Why have no compa.s.sion for that gifted creature and generous mortal, whose worst fault was that he believed in a lord?"

"Mr. Cutbill is so sure to sympathize with himself and his own griefs that he has no need of me; and then he looks so like one that would have recuperative powers."

"There, you 've hit it," cried he, enthusiastically. "That 's it! that's what makes Tom Cutbill the man he is,--_flectes non frangis_. I hope I have it right; but I mean you may smooth him down, but you can't smash him; and it 's to tell the n.o.ble Viscount as much I 'm now on my way to Italy. I 'll say to the distinguished peer, 'I 'm only a p.a.w.n on the chess-board; but look to it, my Lord, or I 'll give check to the king!'

Won't he understand me? ay, in a second, too!"

"I trust something can be done for poor L'Estrange," said Augustus. "It was his sister's fortune; and the whole of it, too."

"Leave that to me, then. I 'll make better terms for him than he 'll get by the a.s.signee under the court. Bless your heart, Bramleigh, if it was n't for a little 'extramural equity,' as one might call it, it would go very hard with the widow and the orphan in this world; but we, coa.r.s.e-minded fellows, as I 've no doubt you 'd call us, we do kinder things in our own way than commissioners under the act."

"Can you recover the money for them?" asked Augustus, earnestly. "Can you do that?"

"Not legally--not a chance of it; but I think I 'll make a n.o.ble lord of our acquaintance disgorge something handsome. I don't mean to press any claim of my own. If he behaves politely, and asks me to dine, and treats me like a gentleman, I 'll not be over hard with him. I like the--not the conveniences--that's not the word, but the----"

"'Convenances,' perhaps," interposed Ellen.

"That's it--the convenances. I like the attentions that seem to say, 'T.

C. is n't to be kept in a tunnel or a cutting, but is good company at table, with long-necked bottles beside him. T. C. can be talked to about the world: about pale sherry, and pretty women, and the delights of Homburg, and the odds on the Derby; he's as much at home at Belgravia as on an embankment.'"

"I suspect there will be few to dispute that," said Augustus, solemnly.

"Not when they knows it, Bramleigh; 'not when they knows it,' as the cabbies say. The thing is to make them know it, to make them feel it.

There 's a rough-and-ready way of putting all men like myself, who take liberties with the letter H, down as sn.o.bs; but you see there 's sn.o.bs and sn.o.bs. There 's sn.o.bs that are only sn.o.bs; there 's sn.o.bs that have nothing distinctive about them but their sn.o.bbery, and there 's sn.o.bs so well up in life, so shrewd, such downright keen men of the world, that their sn.o.bbery is only an accident, like a splash from a pa.s.sing 'bus; and, in fact, their sn.o.bbery puts a sort of accent on their acute-ness, just like a trade-mark, and tells you it was town-made--no bad thing, Bramleigh, when that town calls itself London!"

If Augustus vouchsafed little approval of this speech, Ellen smiled an apparent concurrence, while in reality it was the man's pretension and a.s.surance that amused her.

"You ain't as jolly as you used to be; how is that?" said Cutbill, shaking Bramleigh jocosely by the arm. "I suspect you are disposed, like Jeremiah, to a melancholy line of life?"

"I was not aware, sir, that my spirits could be matter of remark," said Augustus, haughtily.

"And why not? You're no highness, royal or serene, that one is obliged to accept any humor you may be in, as the right thing. You are one of _us_, I take it."

"A very proud distinction," said he, gravely.

"Well, if it's nothing to crow, it's nothing to cry for! If the world had nothing but top-sawyers, Bramleigh, there would be precious little work done. Is that clock of yours, yonder, right--is it so late as that?"

"I believe so," said Augustus, looking at his watch. "I want exactly ten minutes to four."

"And the train starts at four precisely. That's so like me. I 've lost my train, all for the sake of paying a visit to people who wished me at the North Pole for my politeness."

"Oh, Mr. Cutbill," said Ellen, deprecatingly.