if they have only a good cook. Do you suppose they have a good
cook?"

"The agent, Jos Harding, told me they had a Frenchman, and that the
house is splendidly got up."

"What's to be done with _you_, Cutbill, eh?"

"I am at your Lordship's orders," said he, with a very quiet composure.

"You have nothing to do over at that place just now?--I mean at the
mine."

"No, my Lord. Till Pollard makes his report, I have nothing to call me
over there."

"And here, I take it, we have seen everything," and he gave a very
hopeless look through the little window as he spoke.

"There it is, my Lord," said Cutbill, taking up the colored picture of
the pier, with its busy crowds, and its bustling porters. "There it is!"

"I should say, Cutbill, there it is not!" observed the other, bitterly.
"Anything more unlike the reality is hard to conceive."

"Few things are as unlike a cornet in the Life Guards as a child in a
perambulator--"

"Very well, all that," interrupted Lord Culduff, impatiently. "I know
that sort of argument perfectly. I have been pestered with the acorn,
or, rather, with the unborn forests in the heart of the acorn, for many
a day. Let us get a stride in advance of these platitudes. Is the
whole thing like this?" and he threw the drawing across the table
contemptuously as he spoke. "Is it all of this pattern, eh?"

"In one sense it is very like," said the other, with a greater amount
of decision in his tone than usual.

"In which case, then, the sooner we abandon it the better," said Lord
Culduff, rising, and standing with his back to the fire, his head high,
and his look intensely haughty.

"It is not for me to dictate to your Lordship,--I could never presume
to do so,--but certainly it is not every one in Great Britain who could
reconcile himself to relinquish one of the largest sources of wealth
in the kingdom. Taking the lowest estimate of Carrick Nuish mine
alone,--and when I say the lowest, I mean throwing the whole thing into
a company of shareholders and neither working nor risking a shilling
yourself,--you may put from twenty to five-and-twenty thousand pounds
into your pocket within a twelvemonth."

"Who will guarantee that, Cutbill?" said Lord Culduff, with a faint
smile.

"I am ready myself to do so, provided my counsels be strictly followed.
I will do so, with my whole professional reputation."

"I am charmed to hear you say so. It is a very gratifying piece of news
for me. You feel, th