handy—wholly and solely at my own disposal.
You understand?"

Mr. Trefalden, with a furtive smile, replied
that he understood perfectly.

"Nor is this all. I have expensive tastes,
expensive habits, expensive friends, and therefore
I want all I can get for my money. Till
lately I have been lending it at—well, no matter
at how much per cent; but now it's just been
thrown upon my hands again, and I am looking
out for a fresh investment."

Mr. Trefalden, leaning back in his chair, was,
in truth, not a little perplexed by the frankness
with which Laurence Greatorex was placing
these facts before him. However, he listened
and smiled, kept his wonder to himself, and
waited for what should come next.

"After this preface," added Greatorex, "I
suppose I need scarcely tell you the object of
my visit."

"I have not yet divined it," replied the
lawyer.

"I want to know if you can help me to an
investment."

Mr. Trefalden made no secret of the surprise
with which he heard this request.

"I help you to an investment!" he repeated.
"My dear sir, you amaze me. In matters of
that kind, you must surely be far better able to
help yourself than I am to help you."

"Upon my soul, now, I don't see that, Mr.
Trefalden."

"Nay, the very nature of your own business . . . ."

"This is a matter which I am anxious to
keep apart from our business altogether apart,"
interrupted Mr. Greatorex.

"I quite understand that; but what I do
not understand is, that you, a banker, should
apply to me, a lawyer, for counsel on a point
of this kind."

"Can you not understand that I may place
more reliance on your opinion than on my own?"

Mr. Trefalden smiled polite incredulity.

"My dear Mr. Greatorex," he replied, " it is
as if I were to ask your opinion on a point of
common law."

Laurence Greatorex laughed, and drew his
chair a few inches nearer.

"Well, Mr. Trefalden," he said, "I will be
quite plain and open with you. Supposing,
now, that I had good reason for believing that
you could help me to the very thing of which I
am in search, would it then be strange if I
came to you as I have come to-day?"

"Certainly not; but ... ."

"Excuse me—I have been told something
that leads me to hope you can put a fine investment
in my way, if you will take the trouble
to do so."

"Then I regret to say that you have been
told wrongly."

"But my informant . . . ."

"— was in error, Mr. Greatorex. I have
nothing of the kind in my power absolutely
nothing."

"Is it possible?"

"So possible, Mr. Greatorex, that, had I five
thousand pounds of my own to invest at this
moment, I. should be compelled to seek precisely
such counsel as you have just been, seeking
from me.

The banker leaned across the table in such a
manner as to bring his face within a couple of
feet of Mr. Trefalden's.

"But what about the new Company?" said
he.

The lawyer's heart seemed suddenly to stand
still, and for a moment—just one moment—his
matchless self-possession was shaken. He felt
himself change colour. He scarcely dared trust
himself to speak, lest his voice should betray
him.

Greatorex's eyes flashed with triumph; but
the lawyer recovered his presence of mind as
quickly as he had lost it.

"Pardon me," he said, coldly; "but to what
company do you allude?"

"To what company should I allude, except
the one in which you have invested your cousin
Saxon's money?"

Mr. Trefalden looked his questioner haughtily
in the face.

"You labour under some mistake, Mr. Greatorex,"
he said. "In the first place, you are
referring to some association with which I am
unacquainted . . . ."

"But . . . ."

"And in the second place, I am at a loss to
understand how my cousin's affairs should possess
any interest for you."

"A first-rate speculation possesses the very
strongest interest for me," replied the banker.

Mr. Trefalden shrugged his shoulders significantly.

"The law, perhaps, has made me over-cautious,"
said he; "but I abhor the very name
of speculation."

"And yet, if I understood your cousin
rightly, his money has been invested in a speculation,"
persisted Greatorex.

The lawyer surveyed his visitor with a calm
hauteur that made Greatorex fidget in his chair.

"I cannot tell," said he, "how far my cousin,
in his ignorance of money matters, may
have unintentionally misled you upon this point;
but I must be permitted to put you right in
one particular. Saxon Trefalden has certainly
not speculated with his fortune, because I should
no more counsel him to speculate than he would
speculate without my counsel. I trust I am
sufficiently explicit."

"Explicit enough, Mr. Trefalden, but . . . ."

The lawyer looked up inquiringly.

"But disappointing, you see—confoundedly
disappointing. I made sure, after what he had
told me . . . ."

"May I inquire what my cousin did tell you,
Mr. Greatorex?"

"Certainly. He said you had invested a
large part of his property, and the whole of
your own, in the shares of some new company,
the name and objects of which were for the
present to be kept strictly private."