VERY HARD CASH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE note Alfred Hardie received on the 10th
of April, was from Peggy Black. The letters
were well formed, for she had been educated at
the national school; but the style was not upon
a par.

"Mr. Alfred, Sir,—Margaret Black sends her
respects, and if you want to know the truth
about the money, I can tell you all, and where it
is at this present time. Sir, I am now in situation
at Silverton Grove House about a furlong
from the station; and, if you will be so good to
call there and ask for Margaret, I will tell you
where it is, which I mean the 14,000l.; for it is
a sin the young lady should be beguiled of her
own. Only you must please come this evening,
or else to-morrow before ten o'clock, by reason
my mistress and me we are going up to London
that day early, and she talk of taking me abroad
along with her.

                                  "I remain, Sir,
                  "Yours respectfully to command,
                                                       "MARGARET BLACK.

"If you please, sir, not to show this letter on
no account."

Alfred read this twice over, and felt a
contemptuous repugnance towards the writer, a
cashiered servant, who offered to tell the truth
out of spite, having easily resisted every worthy
motive. Indeed, I think he would have perhaps
dismissed the subject into the fire, but for a
strange circumstance that had occurred to him
this very afternoon; but I had no opportunity to
relate it till now. Well, just as he was going to
dress for dinner, he received a visit from Dr.
Wycherley, a gentleman he scarcely knew by
name. Dr. Wycherley inquired after his
kephalalgia; Alfred stared and told him it was
much the same; troubled him occasionally.

"And your insomnia."

"I don't know the word: have you any
authority for it?"

Dr. Wycherley smiled with a sort of benevolent
superiority, that galled his patient, and
proceeded to inquire after his nightly visions and
voices. But at this Alfred looked grave as well as
surprised and vexed. He was on his guard now,
and asked himself seriously what was the meaning
of all this, and could his father have been
so mad as to talk over his own shame with this
stranger: he made no reply whatever.

Dr. Wycherley's curiosity was not of a very
ardent kind: for he was one of those who first
form an opinion, and then collect the materials
of one: and a very little fact goes a long
way with such minds. So, when he got no
answer about the nocturnal visions and voices,
he glided calmly on to another matter. "By-
the-by, that 14,000/.!"

Alfred started; and then eyed him keenly:
"What 14.000l.?"

"The fabulous sum you labour under the
impression of your father having been guilty of
clandestinely appropriating."

This was too much for Alfred's patience:
"I don't know who you are, sir," said he; "I
never exchanged but three words in my life with
you, and do you suppose I will talk to a stranger
on family matters of so delicate a kind as
this? I begin to think you have intruded
yourself on me simply to gratify an impertinent
curiosity."

"The hypothesis is at variance with my established
character," replied the oleaginous one. "Do
me the justice to believe in the necessity of
this investigation, and that it is one of a most
friendly character."

"Then I decline the double nuisance: your
curiosity and your friendship! take them both
out of my room, sir, or I shall turn them both
out by one pair of shoulders."

"You shall smart for this," said the doctor,
driven to plain English by anger, that great
solvent of circumlocution with which Nature has
mercifully supplied us; he made to the door,
opened it, and said in considerable excitement
to some one outside, "Excited!—Very!"

Now Dr. Pleonast had no sooner been converted
to the vernacular, and disappeared, than
another stranger entered the room: he had
evidently been lurking in the passage: it was a
man of smallish stature, singularly gaunt,
angular, and haggard, but dressed in a spruce suit
of black, tight, new, and glossy. In short, he
looked like Romeo's apothecary gone to Stultz
with the money. He fluttered in with pale
cheek and apprehensive body, saying hurriedly,
"Now, my dear sir, be calm: pray be calm: I
have come down all the way from London to see