ated Baffin's Bay Muff and Tippet
Company--the shares are down very low, and Brough is a director there.
The Patent Pump Company--shares at 65, and a fresh call, which nobody
will pay."

"Nonsense, Mr. Smithers! Has not Mr. Brough five hundred thousand
pounds' worth of shares in the INDEPENDENT WEST DIDDLESEX, and is THAT at
a discount? Who recommended my aunt to invest her money in that
speculation, I should like to know?" I had him there.

"Well, well, it is a very good speculation, certainly, and has brought
you three hundred a year, Sam my boy; and you may thank us for the
interest we took in you (indeed, we loved you as a son, and Miss Hodge
has not recovered a certain marriage yet). You don't intend to rebuke us
for making your fortune, do you?"

"No, hang it, no!" says I, and shook hands with him, and accepted a glass
of sherry and biscuits, which he ordered forthwith.

Smithers returned, however, to the charge. "Sam," he said, "mark my
words, and take your aunt _away from the Rookery_. She wrote to Mrs. S.
a long account of a reverend gent with whom she walks out there,--the
Reverend Grimes Wapshot. That man has an eye upon her. He was tried at
Lancaster in the year '14 for forgery, and narrowly escaped with his
neck. Have a care of him--he has an eye to her money."

"Nay," said I, taking out Mrs. Hoggarty's letter: "read for yourself."

He read it over very carefully, seemed to be amused by it; and as he
returned it to me, "Well, Sam," he said, "I have only two favours to ask
of you: one is, not to mention that I am in town to any living soul; and
the other is to give me a dinner in Lamb's Conduit Street with your
pretty wife."

"I promise you both gladly," I said, laughing. "But if you dine with us,
your arrival in town must be known, for my friend Gus Hoskins dines with
us likewise; and has done so nearly every day since my aunt went."

He laughed too, and said, "We must swear Gus to secrecy over a bottle."
And so we parted till dinner-time.

The indefatigable lawyer pursued his attack after dinner, and was
supported by Gus and by my wife too; who certainly was disinterested in
the matter--more than disinterested, for she would have given a great
deal to be spared my aunt's company. But she said she saw the force of
Mr. Smithers's arguments, and I admitted their justice with a sigh.
However, I rode my high horse, and vowed that my aunt should do what she
liked with her money; and that I w