us Yorkshire teas which
might wean an alderman from the coarser delights of turtle or
conger-eel soup and venison.

At noon the following day a very primitive kind of postman brought me a
letter from Sheldon. That astute individual told me that he declined to
advertise, or to give any kind of publicity to his requirements.

"If I were not afraid of publicity, I should not be obliged to pay you
a pound a week," he remarked, with pleasing candour, "since
advertisements would get me more information in a week than you may
scrape together in a twelvemonth. But I happen to know the danger of
publicity, and that many a good thing has been snatched out of a man's
hands just as he was working it into shape. I don't say that this could
be done in my case; and you know very well that it could not be done,
as I hold papers which are essential to the very first move in the
business."

I perfectly understand the meaning of these remarks, and I am inclined
to doubt the existence of those important papers. Suspicion is a
fundamental principle in the Sheldon mind. My friend George trusts me
because he is obliged to trust me--and only so far as he is
obliged--and is tormented, more or less, by the idea that I may at any
moment attempt to steal a march upon him.

But to return to his letter:

"I should recommend you to examine the registries of every town or
village within, say, thirty miles of Huxter's Cross. If you find
nothing in such registries, we must fall back upon the larger towns,
beginning with Hull, as being nearest to our starting-point. The work
will, I fear, be slow, and very expensive for me. I need scarcely again
urge upon you the necessity of confining your outlay to the minimum, as
you know that my affairs are desperate. It couldn't well be lower water
than it is with me, in a pecuniary sense; and I expect every day to
find myself aground.

"And now for my news. I have discovered the burial-place of Samuel
Meynell, after no end of trouble, the details of which I needn't bore
you with, since you are now pretty well up in that sort of work. I am
thankful to say I have secured the evidence that settles for Samuel,
and ascertained by tradition that he died unmarried. The _onus
probandi_ would fall upon any one purporting to be descended from the
said Samuel, and we know how uncommonly difficult said person would
find it to prove anything.

"So, having disposed of Samuel, I came back to London by the next mail;
Cal