whatever be at liberty to withhold such fruits of his
researches, nor discover the same to any one else than the said George
Sheldon, under a penalty of ten thousand pounds, to be recovered as
liquidated damages previously agreed between the parties as the measure
of damages payable to the said George Sheldon upon the breach of this
agreement by the said Valentine Hawkehurst.

"In witness whereof the parties hereto have this 20th day of September
1862 set their hands and affixed their seals." "That sounds stiff
enough to hold water in a court of law," said Valentine, when George
Sheldon had recited the contents of the document.

"I don't suppose it would be much good in Chancery-lane," returned the
lawyer carelessly; "though I daresay it sounds rather formidable to
you. When one gets the trick of the legal jargon, it's not easy to draw
the simplest form of agreement without a few superfluous words. I may
as well call in my clerk to witness our signatures, I suppose."

"Call in any one you like."

The clerk was summoned from a sunless and airless den at the back of
his principal's office. The two men appended their signatures to the
document; the clerk added his in witness of the genuine nature of those
signatures. It was an affair of two minutes. The clerk was dismissed.
Mr. Sheldon blotted and folded the memorandum, and laid it aside in one
of the drawers of his desk.

"Come," he said cheerily, "that's a business-like beginning at any
rate. And now you'd better have some brandy-and-soda, for what I've got
to say will take some time in the saying of it."

On this occasion Mr. Hawkehurst accepted the lawyer's hospitality, and
there was some little delay before the conversation proceeded.

It was a very long conversation. Mr. Sheldon produced a bundle of
papers, and exhibited some of them to his agent, beginning with that
advertisement in the _Times_ which had first attracted his notice, but
taking very good care _not_ to show his coadjutor the obituary in the
_Observer_, wherein the amount of the intestate's fortune was stated.
The ready wits which had been sharpened at so many different
grindstones proved keen enough for the occasion. Valentine Hawkehurst
had had little to do with genealogies or baptismal registers during his
past career; but his experiences were of such a manifold nature that he
was not easily to be baffled or mystified by any new experience. He
showed himself almost as quick at tracing up the i