each other, and that was a comfort; and so she
cheered me up, and almost made me think I had
taken the wisest step in my whole life, except
that of marrying her.

"That fellow Blakeney hates you like sin,"
said Thelluson, whispering over his desk to me
the second week of my engagement; "he's been
telling old Hill this morning that he thinks you
have been an actor, your spirits are so very high,
and he said this while Fox was passing through
the office, on purpose to let the old boy hear.
O, he's a snake in the grass. Will you come
to-night to a harmonic meeting at the Lord
Rodney? They want you to take the chair and
give them a patter song."

"Not so much talking, gentlemen, if you
please," said old Hill, looking up over his
spectacles. "There really must not be so much
talking; it so confuses me I can't distinguish
the plaintiff from the defendant in the brief I
am preparing, in the important case of Grinder
versus Filer, and it has to go to counsel
tonight?"

An hour later old Hill was called out, and
Thelluson went with him. I was writing very
hard, when in burst Thelluson, and began
waltzing round the room with an office stool.

"Hurrah! Mortimer," he said, "I left old
Hill and Blakeney fast at Westminster, waiting
for a cause that can't come on for two hours.
Come and give us that bit of Zanga."

"What bit?" said I, coquettishly.

"O, you know; that bit about 'souls made
of fire, and children of the sun.' Give it us in
the reg'lar Doory Lane manner."

"But I've got this deed to finish."

"Hang the deed. Let it wait; can't always be
slaving."

"Very well, then," said I, "if you will have
it; but let's go further back. You swoon.
You're Alonzo. Give me that ruler. Now, then,
swoon."

Thelluson swooned, with one eye carefully
open.

I began that wonderful piece of rant:

Let Europe and her pallid sons go weep,
Let Afric and her hundred thrones rejoice;
O, my dear countrymen, look down and see
How I bestride your prostrate conqueror-
I tread on haughty Spain!

To my horror, at that moment the door opened,
and in walked Mr. Fox, cold, precise, and trim
as ever, followed by Mr. Blakeney, malignant,
and smiling at the haste and confusion with
which I and Sam vaulted upon our stools, and
recommenced our writing.

At that moment there came a whistle down
the speaking-pipe, and then a bellow of that
beast Blakeney's voice:

"Mr. Fox wants to speak to Mr. Mortimer
for a moment."

"Now we're in for it," said Sam. "It's all
that Blakeney, I know it is! Brazen it out."

I ran up, trembling. There sat Mr. Fox,
cold as ice; repulsive as Rhadamanthus. His
coat was firmly buttoned up to the throat, he
played with a gold pen that he balanced on the
edge of a large pewter inkstand on one side of
him, and Blakeney stood resting his hand on
his chair, feverish with malice.

A largo playbill lay on the desk before Mr.
Fox. It was a Whitby bill, obtained by some
internal malice of Blakeney's, and bore my name
in large letters as the celebrated impersonator
of the Speaking Harlequin.

"Mr. Mortimer," said the man of ice, "from
certain information that I have received, I am
inclined to think that you have insinuated
yourself into this office under a feigned character.
Is this your name?"

"It is, sir."

Blakeney sputtered with pleasure.

"Are you the Mr. Mortimer alluded to in
this bill?'"

"No," said I, boldly—(how could I tell the
truth, when I thought of my poor wife and
children?)—"a cousin of mine—I believe, on
the stage somewhere. Common name in
Yorkshire. Know nothing of him."

Blakeney bit his lips till the blood nearly
came.

"That will do, Mr. Mortimer," said the
lawyer, coldly; " you can go down. But,
remember, no more scenes such as those I have
just had the pain of witnessing! Remember!"

"We must really have no more skylarking!"
cried Blakeney, deprecatingly.

I and old Hill began to fraternise soon after
this. When business was over he liked to hear
me talk, and even forgave me one day when I
flung the pounce-pad at Thelluson, and it
accidentally skimmed his silver spectacles off.

But Fate seemed to have sworn to torment
me. One day when Blakeney was giving me
directions about a deed that he wanted copied,
the door opened, and who should come in but
old Vallancey, stouter than ever, rosy, and
extravagantly dressed. The man was a humbug,
and yet I always liked him to a certain degree,
and the sight of him recalled old times.

"Why, Mortimer," he said, "my soul's
delight, companion of my fame, how is't with
thee? And beshrew me, but it glads my heart
to see thee!"

I gave him such a look, and replied, as coldly
as I could, "that I little expected to see you;
so you are come about that farm in Norfolk; as
you say the title is imperfect."

Vallancey was unmistakably an actor: his
large clean-shaven face, the way he wore his hat,
his gestures, were all those ol the actor. He
took my hint.

"I have come," he said, "to refresh your
managing clerk. I come to tell you that I am
still hesitating, my dear friend, about the
Norfolk business, but that if anything turns up—
turns up, my dear boy—the affair shall be
submitted to your very well-known firm. At the
same time, can you spare me five minutes now
on private business?"

I said I thought I could.

Vallancey waved me out with a hand covered
with Bristol diamonds.