The business completed, a magic change took
place in the little clerk. "Now we are friends
again, sir: and I'll give you a piece of advice;
mind your eye with Mr. Alfred; he is down on
us."

"What do you mean?" inquired Mr. Hardie,
with ill disguised anxiety.

"I'll tell you, sir. He met me this morning:
and says he to me, 'Skinner, old boy, I want to
speak a word to you.' He puts his hands on my
shoulder, and turns me round, and says he all at
one time 'the fourteen thousand pounds!' You
might have knocked me down with a feather.
And he looked me through like a gimlet, mind
ye. 'Come now,' says he, 'you see I know all;
make a clean breast of it.' So then I saw he
didn't know all, and I brazened up a bit: told
him I hadn't a notion what he meant. 'Oh yes
I did,' he said, 'Captain Dodd's fourteen thousand
pounds! it had passed through my hands.' Then
I began to funk again at his knowing that:
perhaps he only guessed it after all: but at the
time I thought he knew it; I was flustered, ye
see. But I said, 'I'd look at the books; but I
didn't think his deposit was anything like that.'
'You little equivocating humbug,' says he: 'and
which was better, to tell the truth at once and
let Captain Dodd, which never did me any harm,
have his own, or to hear it told me in the felon's
dock?' those were his words, sir: and they made
my blood run cold; and if he had gone on at me
like that, I should have split, I know I should:
but he just said, 'there, your face has given
your tongue the lie: you haven't brains enough
to play the rogue.' Oh, and another thing he
said he wouldn't talk to the sparrow-hawk any
more, when there was the kite hard by: so by
that I guess your turn is coming, sir; so mind
your eye. And then he turned his back on me
with a look as if I was so much dirt. But I
didn't mind that; I was glad to be shut of him
at any price."

This intelligence discomposed Mr. Hardie
terribly: it did away with all hope that Alfred meant
to keep his suspicions to himself. "Why did
you not tell me this before?" said he, reproachfully.

Skinner's sharp visage seemed to sharpen as he
replied, "Because I wanted a thousand pounds
first."

"Curse your low cunning!"

Skinner laughed. "Good-by, sir: take care
of yourself and I'll take care of mine. I'm afraid
of Mr. Alfred and the stone jug, so I'm off to
London, and there I'll un-Skinner myself into
Mr. Something or other, and make my thousand
pounds breed ten." And he whipped out, leaving
his master filled with rage and dismay.

"Outwitted even by this little wretch!"

He was now accountable for fourteen thousand
pounds, and had only thirteen thousand left, if
forced to reimburse; so that it was quite on the
cards for him to lose a thousand pounds by
robbing his neighbour and risking his own
immortal jewel: this galled him to the quick;
and altogether his equable temper began to give
way; it had already survived half the iron of his
nerves. He walked up and down the parlour
chafing like an irritated lion. In which state of
his mind the one enemy he now feared and
hated walked quietly into the room, and begged
for a little serious conversation with him.

"It is like your effrontery," said he: "I
wonder you are not ashamed to look your father
in the face."

"Having wronged nobody I can look anybody
in the face," replied Alfred, looking him in the
face point-blank.

At this swift rejoinder, Mr. Hardie felt like a
too confident swordsman, who, attacking in a
passion, suddenly receives a prick that shows him
his antagonist is not one to be trifled with. He
was on his guard directly, and said coldly, "You
have been belying me to my very clerk."

"No, sir: you are mistaken: I have never
mentioned your name to your clerk."

Mr. Hardie reflected on what Skinner had told
him, and found he had made another false move.
He tried again: "Nor to the Dodds?" with an
incredulous sneer.

"Nor to the Dodds," replied Alfred, calmly.

"What, not to Miss Julia Dodd?"

"No, sir, I have seen her but once, since—I
discovered about the fourteen thousand pounds."

"What fourteen thousand pounds?" inquired
Mr. Hardie, innocently.

"What fourteen thousand pounds!" repeated
the young man, disdainfully. Then suddenly
turning on his father, with red brow and flashing
eyes: "the fourteen thousand pounds Captain
Dodd brought home from India: the fourteen
thousand pounds I heard him claim of you with
curses: ay, miserable son, and miserable man,
that I am, I heard my own father called a villain;
and what did my father reply? Did you hurl the
words back into your accuser's throat? No:
you whispered, 'Hush! hush! I'll bring it you
down.' Oh, what a hell Shame is!"

Mr. Hardie turned pale, and almost sick: with
these words of Alfred's fled all hope of ever
deceiving him.

"There, there," said the young man, lowering
his voice from rage to profound sorrow: "I
don't come here to quarrel with my father, nor
to insult him, God knows: and I entreat you for
both our sakes not to try my temper too hard by
these childish attempts to blind me: and, sir,
pray dismiss from your mind the notion that I
have disclosed to any living soul my knowledge
of this horrible secret: on the contrary, I have
kept it gnawing my heart, and almost maddening
me at times. For my own personal satisfaction
I have applied a test both to you and Skinner;
but that is all I have done: I have not told
dear Julia, nor any of her family; and now, if
you will only listen to me, and do what I
entreat you to do, she shall never know; oh,
never."

"Oho!" thought Mr. Hardie, "he comes with
a proposal: I'll hear it, anyway."