Here Goldshed, who was smiling lazily, winked at his junior, who returned that signal in safety, for Mr. Larkin, whose countenance was raised toward the ceiling, had closed his eyes. The chaste attorney's discretion amused them, for Miss Sarah Rumble was an industrious, careworn girl of two-and-fifty, taciturn, and with a brown pug face, and tresses somewhat silvery.

"We are told by the apostle," continued Mr. Larkin, musingly, "not only to avoid evil, but the appearance of evil. I forgot, however, our religions differ."

"Yes--ay--our religions differ, he says; they differ, Levi, don't they?"

"Yes, they do," drawled that theologian.

"Yes, they do; we see our way to that," concluded Goldshed.

Larkin sighed.

There was a short silence here. Mr. Larkin opened his pink eyelids, and showing his small, light blue eyes, while he maintained his easy and gentlemanlike att.i.tude.

The senior member of the firm looked down on his desk, thoughtfully, and picked at an old drop of sealing wax with his office knife, and whistled a few slow bars, and Mr. Levi, looking down also, scribbled the cipher of the firm thirteen times, with flourishes, on a piece of paper.

Mr. Goldshed worked his short thick knees and his heels a little uneasily; the office chair was growing a little bit frisky, it seemed.

"Nishe shailing, Mr. Larkin, and oh, dear! a great lot of delicashy!

What do you think?" said Mr. Goldshed, lifting up the office knife, with the edge toward the attorney, and letting it fall back two or three times, between his finger and thumb, dubiously. "The parties being swells, makesh it more delicate--ticklish--ticklish; do you shinsherely think it's all quite straight?"

"Of course, it's straight. I should hope, Mr. Goldshed, I have never advised any course that was not so," said Mr. Larkin, loftily.

"I don't mean religious--law blesh you--I mean _safe_," said Mr.

Goldshed, soothingly.

A light pink flush touched the bald forehead of the attorney.

"Whatever is right, sir, is safe; and that, I think, can hardly be wrong--I _hope_ not--by which all parties are benefited," said the attorney.

"All parties be diddled--except our shelves. I'm thinking of my shelf--and Mr. Levi, here--and, of courshe, of _you_. Very much of you,"

he added, courteously.

Mr. Larkin acknowledged his care by a faint meek bow.

"They're swells," repeated Mr. Goldshed.

"He saysh they're swelsh," repeated Mr. Levi, whose grave look had something of the air of a bully in it, fixing his dark prominent eyes on Mr. Larkin, and turning his cheek that way a little, also. "There's a danger in handling a swell--in them matters specially."

"Suppose theresh a contempt?" said Mr. Goldshed, whose chair grew restive, and required management as he spoke.

"He saysh a _contempt_," repeated Mr. Levi, "or shomething worse," and he heightened the emphasis with an oath.

"I'll guarantee you for twopence, Mr. Levi; and pray consider me, and do _not_ swear," urged Mr. Larkin.

"If you guarantee us, with a penalty," began Mr. Levi, who chose to take him literally.

"I said _that_, of _course_, Mr. Levi, by way of ill.u.s.tration, only; no one, of _course_, dreams of guaranteeing another without a proper consideration. I should have hoped you _could_ not have misunderstood me. I don't understand guarantees, it is a business I have never touched. I'm content, I hope, with the emoluments of my profession, and what my landed property gives me. I only mean this--that there _is_ no risk. What do _we_ know of Mr. Dingwell, that is not perfectly above board--perfectly? I challenge the world upon _that_. If anything should happen to fall through, _we_, surely, are not to blame. At the same time if you--looking at it with your experience--apprehend any risk, of course, I couldn't think of allowing you to go on. I can arrange, this evening, and not very far from this house, either."

As Mr. Larkin concluded, he made a feint of rising.

"Ba-ah!" exclaimed Levi. "You don't think we want to back out of thish transhaction, Mr. Larkin? _no_-o-oh! That's not the trick of thish offishe--is it, gov'nor? He saysh _no_."

"No," echoed Goldshed.

"No, never--noways! you hear him?" reiterated Mr. Levi. "In for a penny, in for a pound--in for a shilling, in for a thousand. Ba-ah!--No, never."

"No, noways--never!" reverberated Goldshed, in deep, metallic tones.

"But, Levi, there, must look an inch or two before his noshe--and sho must I--and sho, my very good friend, Mr. Larkin, must _you_--a bit before your noshe. I don't see no great danger. We all know, the Honourable Arthur Verney is _dead_. We are _sure_ of _that_--and all the rest is not worth the odd ha'pensh in that book," and he touched the mighty ledger lying by him, in which millions were entered. "The _rest_ is Dingwell's affair."

"Just so, Mr. Goldshed," acquiesced Mr. Larkin. "We go together in that view."

"Dingwell be blowed!--what need _we_ care for Dingwell?" tolled out Mr.

Goldshed, with his ringing ba.s.s.

"Ba-ah!--drat him!" echoed the junior.

"Yes--a--quite as you say--but where's the good of imprecation? With _that_ exception, I quite go with you. It's Dingwell's affair--not _ours_. _We_, of course, go straight--and _I_ certainly have no reason to suspect Dingwell of anything crooked or unworthy."

"Oh, no--ba-ah!--_nothing_!" said Levi.

"Nor I," added Goldshed.

"It'sh delicate--it _izh_ delicate--but very promishing," said Mr.

Goldshed, who was moistening a cigar in his great lips. "Very--and _no_-thing crooked about it."

"No-thing crooked--_no_!" repeated Mr. Levi, shaking his glossy curls slowly. "But very delicate."

"Then, gentlemen, it's understood--I'm at liberty to a.s.sume--that Mr.

Dingwell finds one or other of you here whenever he calls after dark, and you'll arrange at once about the little payments."

To which the firm having promptly a.s.sented, Mr. Larkin took his leave, and, being a client of consideration, was accompanied to the shabby doorstep by Mr. Levi, who, standing at the hall-door, with his hands in his pockets, nodded slily to him across the flagged court-yard, into the cab window, in a way which Mr. Jos. Larkin of the Lodge thought by many degrees too familiar.

"Well--_there's_ a cove!" said Mr. Levi, laughing lazily, and showing his long rows of ivory fangs, as he pointed over his shoulder, with the point of his thumb, towards the street.

"Rum un!" said Mr. Goldshed, laughing likewise, as he held his lighted cigar between his fingers.

And they laughed together tranquilly for a little, till, with a sudden access of gravity, Mr. Goldshed observed, with a little wag of his head--

"He's da-a-am clever!"

"Ay--yes--da-a-am clever!" echoed Levi.

"Not as much green as you'd put your finger on--I tell you--no m.u.f.f--devilish good lay, as _you_ shall see," continued Goldshed.

"Devilish good--no, no m.u.f.f--nothing green," repeated Mr. Levi, lighting his cigar. "Good head for speculation--might be a bit too clever, I'm thinking," and he winked gently at his governor.

"Believe you, my son, if we'd let him--but we won't--will we?" drawled Mr. Goldshed, jocosely.

"Not if I knows it," said Mr. Levi, sitting on the table, with his feet on the stool, and smoking towards the wall.