turned upon him in a
moment, and he quietly repeated the awful monosyllable--"eight!" Mr
Gillingham Howard looked at the old gentleman with detestation in
every feature, for he felt that the person, whoever he was, was
actually robbing him of a thousand pounds; and he would have had very
few scruples in sending the culprit to Botany Bay for so tremendous an
outrage. A sort of smile ran round the assemblage at seeing the sudden
alteration produced on his countenance; and though he had determined
not to give more than the original seven, he was ashamed to be cowed
by an unknown individual at once; and after a few minutes' pause, and
a glance of ineffable hatred at the little old man, who had relapsed
into his state of contented unconcern, he looked at the auctioneer,
and said, "Five hundred more!" Saying this, he put his hands into his
pockets, and kept his eye fixed on his competitor. Without a moment's
hesitation, the old gentleman nodded his head once more, and said, "Mr
Puff, I'm in a hurry. Will this gentleman give ten thousand guineas? I
will!"

The auctioneer gave one look to Mr Gillingham Howard, and saw, from
the blank expression of that gentleman's countenance, that competition
was at an end. The hammer fell, and seemed like a great rock on Mr
Gillingham Howard's heart.

"Your name, if you please, sir," said Mr Puff.

The little old gentleman rose up and said, "Give me a pen and ink.
I'll write an order for the money. My name is Thomas Roe, No. 20,
Riches Court."

CHAPTER II.

A week had passed, and Mr Gillingham Howard nursed his wrath, like Tam
O'Shanter's wife, to keep it warm. The name of the successful
purchaser had struck him with a feeling of horror; for as silence had
brooded for fifty years over the history of his grandfather--and as
the misty period preceding the purchase of Surbridge had given rise to
a whole mythology of ancestry like to the anti-historic periods of
Greece, and other imaginative nations--he looked upon the appearance
of the veritable contemporary of that fabulous age in the same way as
Romulus would have regarded any surviving friend and companion of the
real _bona fide_ robber or pig-driver to whom he probably owed his
birth. It is needless, therefore, to say, that over all other feelings
fear and disgust predominated. He determined to withdraw himself into
still more aristocratic seclusion than before, and on no account to
recognise the existence of his new neighbour. A mo