ea was breaking in
measured rhythm.

"You don't mean there?" said Lord Culduff, half horrified.

"Yes, my Lord, there! Your Lordship is doubtless not aware that of all
her Majesty's faithful lieges the speculative are the least gifted
with the imaginative faculty, and to supply this unhappy want in their
natures, we whose function it is to suggest great industrial schemes
or large undertakings--we 'promoters,' as we are called, are obliged to
supply, not merely by description, but actually pictorially, the results
which success will in due time arrive at. We have, as the poet says, to
annihilate 'both time and space,' and arrive at a goal which no effort
of these worthy people's minds could possibly attain to. What your
Lordship is now looking at is a case in point, and however little
promising the present aspect of that coast-line may seem, time
and money--yes, my Lord, time and money--the two springs of all
success--will make even greater change than you see depicted here."

Mr. Cutbill delivered these words with a somewhat pompous tone, and in a
voice such as he might have used in addressing an acting committee or a
special board of works; for one of his fancies was to believe himself an
orator of no mean power.

"I trust--I fervently trust, Mr. Cutbill," said his Lordship,
nervously, "that the coal-fields are somewhat nigher the stage of being
remunerative than that broken line of rock is to this fanciful picture
before me."

"Wealth, my Lord, like heat, has its latent conditions."

"Condescend to a more commonplace tone, sir, in consideration of my
ignorance, and tell me frankly, is the mine as far from reality as that
reef there?"

Fortunately for Mr. Cutbill, perhaps, the door was opened at this
critical juncture, and the landlord presented himself with a note,
stating that the groom who brought it would wait for the answer.

Somewhat agitated by the turn of his conversation with the engineer,
Lord Culduff tore open the letter, and ran his eyes towards the end to
see the signature.

"Who is Bramleigh--Temple Bramleigh? Oh, I remember,--an attache.
What's all this about Castello? Where 's Castello?"

"That's the name they give the Bishop's Folly, my Lord," said the
landlord, with a half grin.

"What business have these people to know I am here at all? Why
must they persecute me? You told me, Cutbill, that I was not to be
discovered."

"So I did, my Lord, and I made the 'Down Express' call you Mr. M