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Ha! where have those brains been stored up all this while, which he now brings into use for the first time? "Call no man happy till he be dead," says the old proverb. We must now add some words to it: Call no man a fool till the same seal has been set upon him.

Ay; strong necessity will make a man wise as well as bold. But your dislike to Arden made you undervalue his abilities.

Devil take him and them both!—Not once off his guard?

Not once, as far as I could judge of the matter. It will be proved, indeed, that, a few days previous to the date of the forgery, he purchased at the stationer's with whom old Fenshaw deals, that peculiar kind of paper upon which the old gentleman always writes his money bills,—a kind which he had never purchased before: but this circumstance is not very conclusive, since Fenshaw acknowledges giving him a bill of the same date, though for a much smaller sum. Now the old gentleman's memory is impaired, and he may easily be supposed to have set down, in mistake, one sum for another. Your having seen the real bill is the only circumstance that