, being, after all, no more than this:--

'DEAR SIR,--Will you give me the honour of a meeting at
my house this morning, as you pass through the town? I shall
remain within till noon; and hope for some minutes' private discourse
with you.
'Your most obedient, very humble servant,
'BARNABAS STURK.'

Then he sealed it with a great red seal, large enough for a patent
almost, impressed with the Sturk arms--a boar's head for crest, and a
flaunting scroll, with 'Dentem fulmineum cave' upon it. Then he peeped
again from the window to see if the gray of the morning had come, for he
had left his watch under his bolster, and longed for the time of action.

Then up stairs went Sturk; and so, with the note, like a loaded pistol,
over the chimney, he popped into bed, where he lay awake in agitating
rumination, determined to believe that he had seen the last of those
awful phantoms--those greasy bailiffs--that smooth, smirking, formidable
attorney; and--curse him--that bilious marshal's deputy, with the
purplish, pimply tinge about the end of his nose and the tops of his
cheeks, that beset his bed in a moving ring--this one pushing out a
writ, and that rumpling open a parchment deed, and the other fumbling
with his keys, and extending his open palm for the garnish. Avaunt. He
had found out a charm to rout them all, and they sha'n't now lay a
finger on him--a short and sharp way to clear himself; and so I believe
he had.

CHAPTER XLV.

CONCERNING A LITTLE REHEARSAL IN CAPTAIN CLUFFE'S, LODGING, AND A
CERTAIN CONFIDENCE BETWEEN DR. STURK AND MR. DANGERFIELD.

Mrs. Sturk, though very quiet, was an active little body, with a gentle,
anxious face. She was up and about very early, and ran down to the
King's House, to ask Mrs. Colonel Stafford, who was very kind to her,
and a patroness of Sturk's, to execute a little commission for her in
Dublin, as she understood she was going into town that day, and the
doctor's horse had gone lame, and was in the hands of the farrier. So
the good lady undertook it, and offered a seat in her carriage to Dr.
Sturk, should his business call him to town. The carriage would be at
the door at half-past eleven.

And as she trotted home--for her Barney's breakfast-hour was drawing
nigh--whom should she encounter upon the road, just outside the town,
but their grim spectacled benefactor, Dangerfield, accompanied by, and
talking in