ands elevated,
in silence. Then he approached the table, and his eye caught the
well-thumbed volume of Burns' Justice, open at the head "FORGERY!" and
the quicksighted Gammon saw how matters stood at a glance--the process
by which the result he had just witnessed had been arrived at.

"Well, Mr. Quirk, what new vagary now?" he inquired with an air of
smiling curiosity.

"Vagary be----!" growled old Quirk, sullenly, without moving in his
chair.

Gammon stood for a moment or two eying him with a keen scrutiny. "What!"
at length he inquired good-humoredly, "do you then really grudge me any
share in the little enterprise?"

"Eh?" quickly interrupted Quirk, pricking up his ears. "Do you intend to
play _Mackivel_! eh? What must you go down alone to Yatton for, Gammon?"
continued Quirk, anxiously.

"Why, simply as a sort of pioneer--to reconnoitre the churchyard--eh? I
thought it might have been of service; but if"--

"Gammon, Gammon, your hand! I understand," replied Quirk, evidently
vastly relieved--most cordially shaking the cold hand of Gammon.

"But understand, Mr. Quirk," said he, in a very peremptory manner, "no
one upon earth is to know of my visit to Yatton except yourself."

He received a solemn pledge to that effect; and presently the partners
separated, a little better satisfied with each other. Though not a word
passed between them for several days afterwards on the topic chiefly
discussed during the interview above described, the reader may easily
imagine that neither of them dropped it from his thoughts. Mr. Quirk,
shortly afterwards, paid one or two visits to the neighborhood of
Houndsditch, (a perfect hotbed of clients to the firm,) where resided
two or three gentlemen of the Jewish persuasion, who had been placed,
from time to time, under considerable obligations by the firm of Quirk,
Gammon, and Snap, in respect of professional services rendered both to
themselves and to their friends. One of them, in particular, had a
painful consciousness that it was in old Mr. Quirk's power at any time
by a whisper to place his--the aforesaid Israelite's--neck in an
unsightly noose which every now and then might be seen dangling from a
beam opposite Debtor's Door, Newgate, about eight o'clock in the
morning; him, therefore, every consideration of interest and of
gratitude combined to render subservient to the reasonable wishes of Mr.
Quirk. He was a most ingenious little fellow, and had a great taste for
the imi