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 quite as well for Joseph Mason if Round and Crook gave up the matter altogether. It lies in a nutshell, and the truth must come out whatever Round and Crook may choose to say. And I'll tell you more—old Furnival, big a man as he thinks himself, cannot save her.'

'Has he anything to do with it?' asked Mr. Cooke.

'Yes; the sly old fox. My belief is that only for him she'd give up the battle, and be down on her marrow-bones asking for mercy.'

'She'd have little chance of mercy, from what I hear of Joseph Mason.'

'She'd have to give up the property of course. And even then I don't know whether he'd let her off. By heavens! he couldn't let her off unless I chose.' And then by degrees he told Mr. Cooke some of the circumstances of the case.

But it was not till the fourth evening that Mr. Dockwrath spent with his lodger that the intimacy had so far progressed as to enable Mr. Crabwitz to proceed with his little scheme. On that day Mr. Dockwrath had received a notice that at noon on the following morning Mr. Joseph Mason and Bridget Bolster would both be at the house of Messrs. Round and Crook in Bedford Row, and that he could attend at that hour if it so pleased him. It certainly would so please him, he said to himself when he got that letter; and in the evening he mentioned to his new friend the business which was taking him to London.

'If I might advise you in the matter, Mr. Dockwrath,' said Crabwitz, 'I should stay away altogether.'

'And why so?'

'Because that's not your market. This poor devil of a woman—for she is a poor devil of a woman'

'She'll be poor enough before long.'

'It can't be any gratification to you running her down.'

'Ah, but the justice of the thing.'

'Bother. You're talking now to a man of the world. Who can say what is the justice or the injustice of anything after twenty years of possession? I have no doubt the codicil did express the old man's wish,—even from your own story. But of course you are looking for your market. Now it seems to me that there's a thousand pounds in your way as clear as daylight.'

'I don't see it myself, Mr. Cooke.'

'No; but I do. The sort of thing is done every day. You have your father-in-law's office journal?'

'Safe enough.'

'Burn it;—or leave it about in these rooms like;—so that somebody else may burn it.'

'I'd like to see the thousand pounds first.'

'Of course you'd do nothing till you knew about that;—nothing