count, with a laugh of ill-affected indifference.

"There is a mine whose explosion depends entirely upon your Lordship's
discretion. If I say, my Lord, that I never perused a stronger case,
I will also say that I never heard of one so easy of management The
individual in whose favor these proofs exist has not the slightest
knowledge of them. He has not a suspicion that all his worldly prospects
put together are worth a ten-pound note. It is only within the last
three months that I have succeeded in even discovering where he is."

"And where is he?"

"Serving as a soldier with his regiment in the Crimea. He was in
hospital at Scutari when I first heard, but since that returned to duty
with his regiment."

"What signifies all this? The fellow himself is nothing to us!"

Dunn again waited till this burst of anger had passed, and then
resumed,--

"My Lord, understand me well. You can deal with this case now; six
months hence it may be clear and clean beyond all your power of
interference. If Conway's claim derive, as I have strong ground to
believe it, from the elder branch, the estate and the title are both
his."

"You are a hardy fellow, a very hardy fellow, Mr. Dunn, to make such a
speech as this!"

"I said, 'If,' my Lord--'If' is everything here. The assumption is that
Reginald Conway was summoned by mistake to the House of Peers in Henry
the Seventh's reign,--the true Baron Lackington being then an exile. It
is from him this Conway's descent claims."

"I'm not going to constitute myself a Committee of Privileges, sir, and
listen to all this jargon; nor can I easily conceive that the unshaken
possession of centuries is to be disturbed by the romantic pretensions
of a Crimean soldier. I am also aware how men of your cloth conduct
these affair to their own especial advantage. They assume to be the
arbiters of the destinies of great families, and they expect to be paid
for their labors,--eh, is n't it so?"

"I believe your Lordship has very accurately defined our position,
though, perhaps, we might not quite agree as to the character of the
remuneration."

"How so? What do you mean?"

"I, for instance, my Lord, would furnish no bill of costs to either
party. My relations with your Lordship are such as naturally give me a
very deep interest in what concerns you; of Mr. Conway I know nothing."

"So, then, you are simply moved in this present affair by a principle
of pure benevolence; you are to be a sort of