I must know." So he quietly watched his
watcher; and soon satisfied himself he suspected
something amiss. From that hour Skinner was
a doomed clerk.

It was two o'clock: Hardie had just arrived,
and sat in the parlour Cato-like, and cooking.

Skinner was in high spirits: it was owing to
his presence of mind the Bank had not been
broken some hours ago by Maxley; so now,
while concluding his work, he was enjoying
by anticipation his employer's gratitude: "he
can't hold aloof after this," said Skinner; "he
must honour me with his confidence. And I
will deserve it. I do deserve it."

A grave, calm, passionless voice invited him
into the parlour.

He descended from his desk and went in,
swelling with demure complacency.

He found Mr. Hardie seated garbling his
accounts with surpassing dignity. The great
man handed him an envelope, and cooked
majestic on. A wave of that imperial hand, and
Skinner had mingled with the past.

For know that the envelope contained three
things: a cheque for a month's wages; a character;
and a dismissal, very polite, and equally
peremptory.

Skinner stood paralysed: the complacency
died out of his face, and rueful wonder came
instead: it was some time before he could utter
a word: at last he faltered: "Turn me away,
sir? turn away Noah Skinner! your father
would never have said such a word to my father."
Skinner uttered this his first remonstrance in a
voice trembling with awe; but gathered courage
when he found he had done it, yet lived.

Mr. Hardie evaded his expostulation by a
very simple means: he made no reply; but
continued his work, dignified as Brutus,
inexorable as Fate, cool as Cucumber.

Skinner's anger began to rise. He watched
Mr. Hardie in silence, and said to himself,
"Curse you! you were born without a heart!"

He waited, however, for some sign of relenting;
and, hoping for it, the water came into
his own eyes. But Hardie was impassive as ice.

Then the little clerk, mortified to the core,
as well as wounded, ground his teeth, and drew
a little nearer to this incarnate Arithmetic; and
said with an excess of obsequiousness: "Will
you condescend to give me a reason for turning
me away all in a moment, after five and thirty
years' faithful services"

"Men of business do not deal in reasons,"
was the cool reply: "it is enough for you that
I give you an excellent character, and that we
part good friends."

"That we do not," replied Skinner, sharply:
"if we stay together we are friends; but we
part enemies, if we do part."

"As you please, Mr. Skinner. I will detain
you no longer."

And Mr. Hardie waved him away so grandly,
that he started and almost ran to the door.
"When he felt the handle, it acted like a prop to
his heart. He stood firm; and rage supplied
the place of steady courage. He clung to the
door, and whispered at his master; such a
whisper; so loud, so cutting, so full of meaning
and malice; it was like a serpent hissing at a
man. "But I'll give you a reason, a good reason,
why you had better not insult me so cruel: and
what is more, I'll give you two: and one is that
but for me the Bank must have closed this day
at ten o'clock—ay, you may stare; it was I saved
it, not you—and the other is that, if you make an
enemy of me, you are done for. I know too much
to be made an enemy of, sir: a great deal too
much."

At this, Mr. Hardie raised his head from his
book and eyed his crouching venomous assailant
full in the face, majestically, as one can fancy a
lion rearing his ponderous head, and looking
lazily and steadily at a snake that has just hissed
in a corner. Each word of Skinner's was a
barbed icicle to him; yet not a muscle of his close
countenance betrayed his inward suffering.

One thing, however, even he could not master;
his blood: it retired from that stoical cheek to
the chilled and foreboding heart; and the
sudden pallor of the resolute face told Skinner
his shafts had gone home: "Come, sir," said he,
affecting to mingle good fellowship with his
defiance; "why bundle me off these premises,
when you will be bundled off them yourself
before the week is out?"

"You insolent scoundrel! Humph. Explain,
Mr. Skinner."

"Ah, what have I warmed your marble up a
bit? Yes, I'll explain. The Bank is rotten,
and can't last forty-eight hours."

"Oh, indeed! blighted in a day—by the
dismissal of Mr. Noah Skinner. Do not repeat that
after you have been turned into the streets; or
you will be indicted: at present we are
confidential: anything more before you quit the
rotten Bank?"

"Yes, sir, plenty. I'll tell you your own
history, past, present, and to come. The road to
riches is hard and rugged to the likes of me; but
your good Father made it smooth and easy to you,
sir; you had only to take the money of a lot
of fools that fancy they can't keep it themselves;
invest it in Consols and Exchequer bills, live on
half the profits, put by the rest, and roll in
wealth. But this was too slow, and too sure,
for you; you must be Rothschild in a day; so
you went into blind speculation, and flung old
Mr. Hardie's savings into a well. And now for
the last eight months you have been doctoring
the ledger;" Hardie winced just perceptibly;
"you have put down our gains in white, our
losses in black, and so you keep feeding your
pocket-book and emptying our tills: the pear
will soon be ripe, and then you will let it drop,
and into the Bankruptcy Court we go. But,
what you forget, fraudulent Bankruptcy isn't
the turnpike way of trade: it is a broad road,
but a crooked one: skirts the prison wall, sir,
and sights the herring pond."

An agony went across Mr. Hardie's great
face; and seemed to furrow as it ran.

"Not but what you are all right, sir,"