AT THE BAR.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "A CRUISE UPON WHEELS," &C. &C.

CHAPTER XII. THE ART MYSTIC.

WE are not always most in earnest when, we
speak most gravely, nor is it by any means
invariably the case that our meaning is a light
one when we speak triflingly, and cover what
we have to say with a joke. There are men
whom nothing will induce to speak in a solemn
tone, even when they are dealing with questions
which, to themselves at least, are of vital
importance. A man of this sort will speak of
some great battle in which he has been engaged
as a "nasty scrimmage," and as he seizes the
shell which has fallen, but not yet exploded, and
hurls it over the battlements, will very likely
address the terrible missile with some slang
phrase, as if he were dealing with a schoolboy's
firework. Mr. Julius Lethwaite was a man of
this sort.

The news brought by Jonathan Goodrich,
and communicated by him to his employer in
the dining-room — while Mr. Scroop occupied
his leisure as best he might in the sanctum—
was of the most startling and disquieting sort,
and the old clerk was not always able to control
his emotion as he told his tale. Owing to the
continued indifference manifested by Mr.
Lethwaite as to all matters of business, and his
obstinate determination not to interfere in his
own affairs except by deputy, and through the
agency of Mr. Goodrich, it had come to pass
that the acting partner in "Lethwaite and Gamlin"
had managed to possess himself of an undue
influence in the management of the concern,
and did, indeed, pretty much as he liked. There
is no substitute to be found in this world for
personal supervision. The eye of the master
must be over every work that is to prosper, and
the deputed authority which Jonathan Goodrich
sought to exercise on behalf of his chief would
not do. While Lethwaite drummed at home,
or consulted Mr, Cornelius Vampi in his
observatory, poor old Jonathan strove hard to look
after his interests in the City, but strove to
little purpose. Mr. Gamlin was too much for
him. He had bought his way into the firm with
the conviction that he was to be the managing
partner, and he meant to be so, and was.

Now this gentleman had been very much
tempted by certain American investments which
had come in his way, and had (as it will be
remembered was hinted by old Goodrich on a
former occasion) dabbled in them to an alarming
extent. He had gone out of his way, too,
to make large purchases of cotton, and this
even to a greater extent than Goodrich himself
was aware of. Then came a panic. Men began
to talk gloomily about American securities, and
of the impossibility of getting cotton from the
Southern States if there should be a blockade of
their ports. And all this time the old clerk was
constantly coming to his master with entreaties
that he would take some active part in the
management of affairs so nearly concerning him,
and beseeching him to stir before it was too late.
One such interview we have already described,
and it will serve as a specimen of many others.
Mr. Lethwaite was not a man of business, and
nothing — not even self-interest, the motive
which he always spoke of as the sole instigator
of all human action — could make a man of
business of him. And now the crisis, so long
prophesied of by poor old Goodrich, had come.
The tidings which came by each American mail
were worse and worse, and at length it had
come to pass that on one fine Monday morning
Mr. Gamlin had not made his appearance at the
office in the City, and that on inquiry made at
his private house, it transpired that he had not
been seen or heard of since the previous Saturday
afternoon. Further examination into the
affairs of the firm went to prove that this
gentleman had, previous to his departure, collected
into his own hands all outstanding debts, and
drawn out every penny standing at the banker's
in the name of Lethwaite and Gamlin, besides
turning every security on which he could lay his
hands into hard money. This done, he had
disappeared.

And this was the news which the poor old
clerk had come to break — he hardly knew how
— to his employer, on the occasion when he had
found him, as we have seen, so busy with his
musical studies, that he could hardly be got to
attend to the old man's tale. He had got used
to "Jonathan's panics," as he used to call them,
and thought at first that this was only one of
the series, and it was long, even after he had
succeeded in getting his master's ear, before
Goodrich could make him believe what it was
that had happened, and that Mr. Gamlin had
shown himself so little under the influence of