and his friends,
to resume the conversation which had been in progress previous to the
entrance of Mr. Durnford. When the pipes had been blown up, and were once
more in full blast, there was no longer any excuse for silence. Mr. Caske,
being the host, was then the first to speak. He had known his minister
too well to invite him to partake of the refreshment with which he was
regaling his friends.

He was a small, rotund man, with shining, rosy cheeks, and a husky voice.

"All well with you, Mr. Durnford?"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Caske; but I am afraid I intrude?"

He was conscious of some constraint on the part of the company.

"I fear," he resumed, "that I have interrupted some important business?"
and he looked around with an air of enquiry.

Mr. Caske airily waved his long pipe.

"Oh no, sir," he said, lightly, "nothing of consequence"--here he glanced
at his friends--"we were, ah--talking about our friend, ah--'the Golden
Shoemaker.'"

Mr. Caske was secretly anxious to elicit the minister's opinion of
"Cobbler" Horn.

"Ah," exclaimed Mr. Durnford, with an intonation in which sarcasm might
not have been difficult to detect, "and what about 'the Golden
Shoemaker'?"

Mr. Caske looked at Mr. Botterill and Mr. Kershaw; and Mr. Kershaw and
Mr. Botterill looked first at each other, and then at Mr. Caske.

"Well," replied Mr. Caske, at length, "he's being more talked about than
ever."

"Well, now," asked the minister, "as to what in particular?"

"Chiefly as to the way he's squandering his money."

"Oh, I wasn't aware Mr. Horn had become a spendthrift! You must have been
misinformed, Mr. Caske," and Mr. Durnford looked the brewer intently in
the face.

"Ah," said Mr. Caske, somewhat uneasily, "you don't take me, sir. It's not
that he spends his money. It's the rate at which he gives it away. He's
simply flinging it from him right and left!"

As he spoke, Mr. Caske swelled with righteous indignation. Money, in his
eyes, was a sacred thing--to be guarded with care, and parted with
reluctantly. No working man could have been more careful with regard to
the disposal of each individual shilling of his weekly wages, than was
Mr. Caske in the handling of his considerable wealth.

"He's simply tossing his money from him, sir," he reiterated, "as if it
were just a heap of leaves."

"Yes," said Mr. Botterill, "and it doesn't seem right."

Mr. Botterill was a tall man, with glossy black hair and whiskers, and an