gives melodious voices to all vernal things.

Pleasant magician that waves this wand! what curious people are walking in
the chambers of your brain! What dreams are yours, and what cruel cuts this
real world sometimes gives you! You have no right to be here, poor devil!
You are somewhat misplanted; you belong to some sphere between earth and
heaven, and not very near either. That such a place is provided for you I
am certain. There it is that all your books will run through countless
editions; there it is you can afford to hire some one to write your
autograph for besieging admirers, and feed, as you should,

"On the roses, and lay in the lilies of life."

But I was speaking of pen-magic. It is not my present mood to do anything
fantastical in that way. I only wish to give you a sight of Mr. Flint, as
he appeared one afternoon some months after Mortimer had left his office.
He was standing in that inner-room of his counting-house to which I have
introduced the reader. I change my mind--he was not standing. He had just
thrown himself into a chair, in which he did not seem at all easy.

I take peculiar delight in placing Mr. Flint in uncomfortable positions.

He was surprised, alarmed, and angry. He missed the forged check and the
morocco case which he had watched so many years. That they had been
purloined, he could not doubt, and his keen thought fell on Mortimer. The
loss of the check troubled him; he liked to look at it occasionally, for
Snarle's sake; but the necklace--that gave him strange alarm.

"Snake!" he hissed, "you have crawled into my affairs, and I'll tread on
you--tread on you and kill you! You stole the check to save Snarle's name;
and the necklace--why did you steal that? Was it valuable? Yes, that is it.
I'll grind you in the dust. I'll put you in a prison, and let your
brainless father look at you through the bars!"

This humane idea caused Mr. Flint to rub his dry hands, and chuckle
violently.

"But"--here Mr. Flint's countenance fell. "If I do this, won't Walters ruin
me with that unfortunate letter? O, I was a fool to write it; yet he would
have murdered me if I had not."

And Mr. Flint thought and thought.

To obtain the letter was impossible. Walters might have left the city; even
if he had not, there was a method in his madness which Flint knew he could
not circumvent. He could not lose such a chance of crushing Mortimer as
presented itself; and yet to attempt it while Walters had p