"There now, you see, Wace it's right there should be Whigs as well as Tories -Pit and Fox -I've always heard them go together."

"Well, I don't like Garstin," said the brewer. "I did n't like his conduct about the Canal Company. Of the two, I like Transome best. If a nag is to throw me, let him have some blood.”

Ι

say,

"As for blood, Wace," said Mr. Salt, the wool-factor, a bilious man, who only spoke when there was a good opportunity of contradicting, "ask my brother-in-law Labron a little about that. These Transomes are not the old blood."

"Well, they're the oldest that 's forthcoming, I suppose," said Mr. Wace, laughing. "Unless you believe in mad old Tommy Trounsem. I wonder where that old poaching fellow is now."

"I saw him half-drunk the other day," said young Joyce. "He'd got a flag-basket with handbills in it over his shoulder."

"I thought the old fellow was dead," said Mr. Wace. "Hey! why, Jermyn," he went on merrily, as he turned round and saw the attorney entering; "you Radical! how dare you show yourself in this Tory house? Come, this is going a bit too far. We don't mind Old Harry managing our law for us-that's his proper business from time immemorial; but —”

the

"Buta" said Jermyn, smiling, always ready to carry on a joke, to which his slow manner gave piquancy of surprise, "if he meddles with politics he must be a Tory."

Jermyn was not afraid to show himself anywhere in

Treby. He knew many people were not exactly fond of him, but a man can do without that, if he is prosperous. A provincial lawyer in those old-fashioned days was as independent of personal esteem as if he had been a Lord Chancellor.

There was a good-humoured laugh at this upper end of the room as Jermyn seated himself at about an equal angle between Mr. Wace and Christian.

We were talking about old Tommy Trounsem; you remember him? They say he's turned up again," said Mr. Wace.

"Ah?" said Jermyn, indifferently. "But-aWace - I'm very busy to-day — but I wanted to see you about that bit of land of yours at the corner of Pod's End. I've had a handsome offer for you - I'm not at liberty to say from whom - but an offer that ought to tempt you."

"It won't tempt me," said Mr. Wace, peremptorily; "if I've got a bit of land, I'll keep it. It's hard enough to get hereabouts."

"Then I'm to understand that you refuse all negotiation?" said Jermyn, who had ordered a glass of sherry, and was looking round slowly as he sipped it, till his eyes seemed to rest for the first time on Christian, though he had seen him at once on entering the room.

"Unless one of the confounded railways should come. But then I'll stand out and make 'em bleed for it."

There was a murmur of approbation; the railways were a public wrong much denunciated in Treby.

"A-Mr. Philip Debarry at the Manor now?” said Jermyn, suddenly questioning Christian, in a haughty tone of superiority which he often chose to

use.

"No," said Christian, "he is expected to-morrow morning.'

"Ah!" Jermyn paused a moment or two, and then said, "You are sufficiently in his confidence, I think, to carry a message to him with a small document ?"

"Mr. Debarry has often trusted me so far," said Christian, with much coolness; "but if the business is yours, you can probably find some one you know better."

There was a little winking and grimacing among those of the company who heard this answer.

"A-true-a," said Jermyn, not showing any offence; "if you decline. But I think, if you will do me the favour to step round to my residence on your way back, and learn the business, you will prefer carrying it yourself. At my residence, if you please not my office."

“Oh, very well," said Christian. "I shall be very happy." Christian never allowed himself to be treated as a servant by any one but his master, and his master treated a servant more deferentially than an equal. "Will it be five o'clock? what hour shall we say?" said Jermyn.

Christian looked at his watch and said, “About five I can be there."

“Very good,” said Jermyn, finishing his sherry.

"Well-a-Wace-a-so you will hear nothing about Pod's End?"

"Not I."

"A mere pocket-handkerchief, not enough to swear by-a-" here Jermyn's face broke into a smile"without a magnifying-glass."

"Never mind. It's mine into the bowels of the earth and up to the sky. I can build the Tower of Babel on it if I like-eh, Mr. Nolan ?"

"A bad investment, my good sir," said Mr. Nolan, who enjoyed a certain flavour of infidelity in this smart reply, and laughed much at it in his inward way.

"See now, how blind you Tories are," said Jermyn, rising; "if I had been your lawyer, I'd have had you make another forty-shilling freeholder with that land, and all in time for this election. But-a

the verbum sapientibus comes a little too late now." Jermyn was moving away as he finished speaking, but Mr. Wace called out after him, "We're not so badly off for votes as you are-good sound votes, that'll stand the Revising Barrister. Debarry at the top of the poll!"

The lawyer was already out of the doorway.

CHAPTER XXI

"Tis grievous, that with all amplification of travel both by sea and land, a man can never separate himself from his past history.

R. JERMYN's handsome house stood a little way out of the town, surrounded by garden and lawn and plantations of hopeful trees. As Christian approached it he was in a perfectly easy state of mind: the business he was going on was none of his, otherwise than as he was well satisfied with any opportunity of making himself valuable to Mr. Philip Debarry. As he looked at Jermyn's length of wall and iron railing, he said to himself, "These lawyers are the fellows for getting on in the world with the least expense of civility. With this cursed conjuring secret of theirs called Law, they think everybody is frightened at them. My Lord Jermyn seems to have his insolence as ready as his soft sawder. He's as sleek as a rat, and has as vicious a tooth. I know the sort of vermin well enough. I've helped to fatten one or two.”

In this mood of conscious, contemptuous penetration, Christian was shown by the footman into Jermyn's private room, where the attorney sat surrounded with massive oaken bookcases, and other furniture to correspond, from the thickest-legged library-table to the calendar-frame and card-rack. It was the sort of room a man prepares for himself when he feels sure of a long